If you have been liv­ing under a rock in the past few weeks, then you might have missed one of the biggest ker­fuf­fles in Inter­net his­tory. Or so it seems.

No, I’m not talk­ing about the con­tested elec­tions in Iran.

I’m talk­ing about the recent Face­book user­name frenzy, when Face­book allowed its users to reg­is­ter user­names, mak­ing pro­file addresses shorter and more memorable.

Lead­ing up to it, they used a count­down timer. Brilliant.

Last week, I was watch­ing a movie with my wife Sylvie Fortin. At 12:01 AM, I decided to log onto Face­book using my iPhone, just to see. And wouldn’t you know it? I man­aged to secure Face​book​.com/​m​i​c​h​e​l​f​o​r​tin for me, and Face​book​.com/​l​i​c​o​r​ice for our fan page.

(Sylvie also cap­tured “sylviefortin” for herself.)

The Licorice Group, LLC is the name of our pub­lish­ing com­pany, located in Las Vegas, Nevada. Obvi­ously, “miche­landsylviefortin” was way too long and would defeat the pur­pose of get­ting a shorter mnemonic. So I decided on “licorice.”

Any­way, you might be won­der­ing why I said this was a ker­fuf­fle. Well, hold on tight, because this one is a doozie (and there’s a mar­ket­ing les­son in here, too)…

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My recent arti­cle about Face­book not being a viable mar­ket­ing tool has cre­ated quite a stir.

Many peo­ple agreed with me. But some peo­ple didn’t, and I respect that. How­ever, while a few were scathing and harsh in their remarks, oth­ers posted some excel­lent rebut­tals on their own blogs.

This topic seems to be as con­tro­ver­sial as the long-​​versus-​​short-​​copy debate in copy­writ­ing cir­cles. Deja-​​vu? Well, it’s no won­der because, just like the copy length debate, both sides are right.

It all depends on how you use them and with whom.

That’s why I agree with most of Facebook’s pro­po­nents. That might sound like a con­tra­dic­tion, but I believe it’s because many mis­un­der­stood my post. So I wanted to take a moment before hop­ping on the plane to clar­ify a few things.

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