Facebook Originally Planned On Auctioning Off Vanity URLs

In an effort to make money from users, Facebook was considering on auctioning off vanity URLs to the highest bidder.  Originally Facebook was planning an ascending auction where the highest bidder would win the URL and user name.  The problem with the auction system is that Facebook would have to monitor millions of auctions in a short period of time.

Facebook was thinking about doing a Vickery auction.  An interested party submits a bid and the highest bidder only has to pay a penny more than the second highest bid.  This was too complicated to handle too.  Some of Facebook’s users tested out the auctions and gave a lot of hard pushback because MySpace and Twitter already offer vanity URLS for free.

[via BusinessInsider]

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