Vanity and Identity

Having read this interesting post about the upcoming vanity URL nonsense, I couldn’t help but agree totally. Having discussed this briefly over lunch recently, I think that while its great that people are starting to use these services, they are

1. nothing we haven’t seen before (IRC anyone?)
2. ok – the usability of the trending UI is nice but there are a lot of users who simply use it to stay on the bandwaggon all the time and gather followers, etc.
3. and as was pointed out in the post above, you can own your own personal domain, etc…

Phew – rant over…until the next time.