Vanity, vanity, all is Vanity.....

Chris Messina takes issue with TechCrunch:

Arrington has a post that claims that Facebook is getting wise to something MySpace has known from the start - users love vanity URLs.

I don’t buy it. In fact, I’m pretty sure that the omission of vanity URLs on Facebook is an intentional design decision from the beginning, and one that I’ve learned to appreciate over time.

From what I’ve gathered, it was co-founder Dustin Moskovitz’s stubbornness that kept Facebook from allowing the use of pseudonymic usernames common on previous-generation social networks like AOL. Considering that Mark Zuckerberg’s plan is to build an online version of the relationships we have in real life, it only makes sense that we should, therefore, call our friends by their IRL names — not the ones left over or suggested by a computer.

Hmmm....brand names no, but Facebook is still full of nom de plumes, false names, name squats etc - its just that they are more subtle, so you just have to keep your eye out for them. When we were kicked off for being Broadstuff on Facebook, I gathered all the Julius Caesars, Attila The Huns, Sue Donnem's etc and showed this to them as evidence of the widespread (ab)usage of names.

Answer got I none.......I was told that Facebook rigorously polices pseudonyns, but 120m users+ is a big beat....

Our research shows heavy users on nearly any Social Net going (Linked In may be an exception) typically have multiple ID's.

The second half of the quote from Ecclesiastes used in this posts' title reads....."There is Nothing New Under the Sun". I suspect it applies to Facebook too......