For Sale: Facebook Vanity Names – Welcome To Socialsquatting?

Just 24 hours after the launch of the facebook vanity URL, we are seeing people starting to sell.

• biggestlooser – $8,000
  rebate – $60,000
  tonightshow – $15,000
  sexvideo – $17,000

All these names are available at assetize.com, a site for buying and selling accounts including Facebook, Twitter, GMail and Wordpress. People seem to be buying accounts; one recent sale for a Twitter account called m*r with 7,851 followers apparently sold for US$1,250.00.

What do you think about this practice? Is it “socialsquatting”, the result of a free and open market? Is there really any value to having that niche keyword on a social media site?

Facebook Vanity URL = Domainer

Mashable is reporting that 500,000 usernames were registered in 15 mins. Well I happened to be watching the clock tick down, and acquired the keyword “domainer”. Feel free to get in contact.

To be honest, I really didn’t think this would be as big as it was. Within minutes I had people sending me friend invites…. some were people I’d known on forums and others were fellow bloggers.

I’d be interested to know your views on this. Did you register a name? Are you even on facebook?