On Friday, at a time when most people are usually out partying and looking forward to a doner kebab whilst stumbling home, Facebook decided to release it’s new vanity URLs for people to snap up and boy were they snapped up. According to Mashable, 5555 usernames were being registered every second at it’s highest point.

I would have been awake at 5am to nab my own username but due to heavy hayfever and a plethora of tablets that do nothing except make me drowsy, I slept right through until Saturday afternoon. Thankfully though, it seems my last name is relatively unique and I’m now the proud owner of facebook.com/philhancox. Along with twitter.com/philhancox and, of course, my own domain philhancox.co.uk, are there any more vanity URLs I should be snapping up?

Naturally a few funny and interesting Facebook usernames have also been registered. One of my favourites is facebook.com/defaults.aspx (of course, Facebook is primarily written in PHP but meh, it’s still genius) or facebook.com/index. I also quite like the mirror username facebook.com/moc.koobecaf and I’m sure with another 3 million or so vanity URLs registered, there will be another good few funny ones out there.

At the moment though I chose my vanity URL for the one reason they’re important: branding. With a Facebook URL, people and businesses (and those where the two are one and the same) can have their own shorter, attractive and more trustworthy Facebook brands instead of facebook.com/pages/blah/blah-blah-blah/01234567890 it can be facebook.com/business. Nice.

Facebook is realising Twitter is becoming a powerful tool that businesses are using to converse with their customers, and Facebook wants in on the action. Instead of businesses putting up signs saying follow us on twitter.com/business, they want them putting up signs saying check us out on facebook.com/business and vanity URLs are one step further at achieving this mission. We’ll see if vanity URLs help Facebook become a larger slice of the branding and social media strategy for businesses wanting to get closer to their customer.

Did you get your vanity URL? Friend me on facebook.com/philhancox and don’t forget to follow me at twitter.com/philhancox.

Just a quick post to thank everyone who gave their time by filling in my survery for my dissertation. I’m now doing all kinds of statistical analysis (eugh!) and there are some interesting results. The sample size was small, but I like a few of the results that have come out of it.

I managed to reach the limit of 100 respondents so thanks everyone. I particularly want to thank these lovely Tweeters who filled in the survey (and replied to confirm), retweeted or in Hannah Swifts case, helped with Facebook pestering aswell!

• @AffiliateStuff
• @BFG9000
• @charliejclark
• @chrisclarkson
• @glassboxmedia
• @hairycornflakes
• @iBradley
• @jst1986
• @jesseowen
• @KeithBond
• @lammo77
• @swifty7

Apologies if I missed you out, let me know and I’ll add you to the list.

I will possibly release some results and analysis (in a less academic manner than my dissertation) next week but, of course, it’s not a massive or controlled study so take it with a pinch of salt.

Thanks again for your help everyone, I owe you all a beer/favour/hug (place your orders now!).

Well this is it. My new home. When I’m not chilling at Twitter, A4U, Facebook or some other procrastination enhancing website I will be attempting to update this blog on a daily basis with a good mixture of content such as website reviews, my take on the headlines in web design/web development/seo/affiliate marketing and some personal stuff thrown in for good measure; most likely film reviews or photos from random adventures.

To get the ball rolling, I might as well introduce myself. The formal introduction is published here (in short, I’m a student with a job as marketing executive for an office supplies company and freelance web guy), so why not start things off with a list of five random things you might not know about me.

1. I’m a proud member of English Heritage. Despite living the student lifestyle with far too many drinking and party sessions, I also like a nice day out to an old castle and explore the history of certain landmarks.

2. I love driving and one of my life ambitions is to do the Gumball Rally. I did a student version a couple of years back in a Nissan Micra and it was possibly the most fun I’ve ever had in my life. Despite this, I don’t actually own my own car (I’m insured on the girlfriends’) and I haven’t got a clue what’s under the bonnet. I just love to pick up the keys and go for a good drive in the country.

3. I attended Wolverhampton Grammar School where alumni (or Old Wulfrunians as they are called by the school) include Mervyn King, the Governor of the Bank of England and Roy Wood.

4. I worked as a volunteer in a charity shop for a year and a half (PDSA). It was supposed to be for my Duke of Edinburgh award but I didn’t finish it. I did, however, spend almost every spare hour working in the shop and was offered the role of assistant manager, which I declined to complete my A-Levels. I’ve also worked as a paper boy, in Dunelm, Wickes, a social club, a jewellery shop and an(other) office supplies company.

5. We were allowed to drop one A-Level going into the second year of sixth form and ironically I dumped IT as I found it proposterously boring. Now my job is sitting at a computer all day, mostly coding!

Not particularly interesting just yet, but I have plenty of time ahead of me for new adventures! If you have questions that could yield more fascinating information, feel free to ask and I may include them in a future post!

In the meantime, I hope you’ll subscribe to the RSS feed for this blog and look forward to future, hopefully daily, posts.