p2pnet news view P2P:- Fa$ebook users ID themselves with their real names, with the exception of, “Web address for your profile or the Facebook Pages you administer,” says the FB blog.

This URL, “was just a randomly assigned number like ‘id=592952074,’ it says.

But that’ll soon change, it states, adding:

“Starting at 12:01 a.m. EDT on Saturday, June 13, “you’ll be able to choose a username on a first-come, first-serve basis for your profile and the Facebook Pages that you administer by visiting www.facebook.com/username/.

“You’ll also see a notice on your home page with instructions for obtaining your username at that time.”

But if Dustin Moskovitz were dead, “he’d be rolling over in his grave,” reckons FactoryCity.

“For those of you who don’t know who Dustin Moskovitz is, he’s one of those infrequently mentioned co-founders of Facebook that prevented Facebook from offering usernames or friendly web addresses (so-called ‘vanity URLs‘ in the industry) from the beginning,” says the post, going on:

“It was his insistence that people should go by their real names on Facebook — and should thus perform under their true identities — that I posit has accounted for much of Facebook’s success with non-digital natives. Of course, competition makes institutions do crazy things, and I think that includes getting into the domain-slash-namespace game.

“Arguing that Facebook shouldn’t get into the vanity URL business, I still think that they had it right the first time around. Digital identity should change the adapt to humans; not force humans to refer to each other in more computer-friendly ways. But the allure is simply too great. I also can’t say that I blame them, even though I think it’s a distraction along the way towards more widespread real identity (and thereby reputability) online.”

Now you know.

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FactoryCity – Facebook usernames and the battle over your digital identity, June 9, 2009