Facebook vanity URLs in the works

Techcrunch reports that at long last Facebook is preparing to do something about those heinous numerical user ID strings that are used in the URLs of its users' profile pages. No longer will I have to be http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=718386140. Instead, I could conceivably be http://www.facebook.com/workingguy.

Well, maybe. If Techcrunch is on the money, that means that some users are going to really luck out when the so-called "landrush" begins and some are going to be incredibly frustrated.

How will it work? At some as-yet-unknown date and time, the doors for registering your own custom URL will be thrown open, and it will likely be first-come, first-served. Those of you with very common names will likely experience frustration as the variants of john, smith, johnsmith, jsmith, john_smith, and jxsmith1954 are registered in droves. And even those of us with relatively uncommon names (well, last names, anyway) are likely to have our share of headaches if we're slow on the draw. There are actually a couple dozen people with my exact name on Facebook, including at least one guy with the same middle initial. Maddening.

Again, as Techcrunch notes, vanity URLs are becoming a big component of all manner of web services. Any teenager worth her iPod has a vanity URL on her MySpace profile by now so she can rattle that off at homecoming instead of attempting to recite a multi-digit identifier.

And while these URLs are invariably described by the term "vanity," there's much more to it than that. As any SEO expert will tell you, memorable, descriptive URLs are important in the web search game, and they're good for users, too. Descriptive URLs are easier to remember, and they give the user key information about the site they're about to visit before they ever get there. (After all, what are domain names other than large-scale vanity URLs?) Gobbledygook numerical strings are useless on all fronts.

Expect a formal announcement about the upcoming vanity URLs this week, along with the distinct possibility that -- gasp! -- you might actually have to pay for them.

Would you fork over some cash for the perfect URL? If so, how much?