UPDATE: The Facebook vanity URL scramble is on! Mashable reports that 200,000 usernames were claimed on Facebook within the first three minutes they were available!

I've replaced the Mashable Facebook URL chat mentioned below with Mashable's Facebook article home page, since the chat is no longer live. There you'll find articles, discussions, and explanations related to the Facebook usernames and Facebook in general.

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It's almost midnight in the Eastern U.S., and that means it's almost time for the digital equivalent of the Old West's gold rush: social networking Web site Facebook is letting its users select their own URL names, instead of the meaningless numbers that make up users' Web addresses currently.

Of course, the Facebook vanity URL gold rush is on because only one person can have a given name, such as John Smith. To find out more about how the Facebook land grab works and how to try to get your vanity URL, and to get other questions answered, the social networking Web site Mashable.com is hosting a live chat on the Facebook URL matter. Even after the chat ends, portions of it will probably be archived online so you can learn about the Facebook vanity URL land grab, gold rush, or whatever you want to call it!

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