LaBox™

At exactly 12:01pm ACT today, Facebook launch their newest feature - vanity URLs or “Facebook Usernames“, as you can see below:

http://facebook.com/SherleneSolatorio

Follow up:

This will allow Facebook users to easily pass around their Facebook profiles because now we have a memorable URL. Not only that, we can now include our Facebook URL in our business cards instead of using a third-party service like: http://profile.to/laibcoms which only a few will recognize.

Update: Facebook accounts registered before June 10, 2009 are not eligible to get a vanity URL for now.

Update #2: Here’s a tip, all these usernames are the same - http://facebook.com/jc.john.sese.cuneta; http://facebook.com/jCjOhN.SeSeCuNeTa; http://facebook.com/J.c.J.o.H.n.sEsE.cUnEtA.

Update #3: This also works - http://facebook.com/JC-John.Sese-Cuneta.

The new feature is also available for Fan Pages, however for now, only pages with at least 1,000 fans and have created the page before May 31, 2009. For the unqualified pages, the floor will be opened on July 1st.

For Facebook Groups, we have to live with the ugly URLs for now, like so: http://www.facebook.com/groups.php?ref=sb#/group.php?gid=88684019421. I hope that they implement this feature soon for groups, a memorable “facebook.com” based URL is better than a third-party URL shortener - it’s all about trust.

If you haven’t grabbed your vanity URL yet, just click here.

http://facebook.com/JCJohnSeseCuneta

Oh, some trivia from Mashable:

• 200,000 usernames were registered in 3 minutes
• 500,000 usernames in 15 minutes

Watch the launch coverage from Mashable below:

Also: Facebook Usernames are LIVE: 200,000 Usernames in 3 Minutes and Facebook Username Rush Imminent: What YOU Need to Know.