Twittering ‘not the best way’ to reach out to young unemployed, says report

Recession-hit young people prefer to get help with their problems from a face-to-face service targeted specifically at them, advice organisations Youth Access and the Law Centres Federation said.

As youth unemployment soars and young people’s need for advice on homelessness, benefits and debt reaches unprecedented levels, policies which direct resources to generic advice providers, telephone advice and internet-based services are likely to leave many young people without the help and support they need to overcome their problems.

Recession-hit young people prefer to get help with their problems from a face-to-face service targeted specifically at them, advice organisations Youth Access and the Law Centres Federation said.

As youth unemployment soars and young people’s need for advice on homelessness, benefits and debt reaches unprecedented levels, policies which direct resources to generic advice providers, telephone advice and internet-based services are likely to leave many young people without the help and support they need to overcome their problems.

Young people are more likely to have civil legal problems than the rest of the population, said the report, Rights Within Reach. However, many fail to get the help they need.

Every year, an estimated 200,000 young people try but fail to get legal advice with severe consequences for those individuals and for society as a whole.

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Facebook Users to Get Personalized Usernames

Coming Soon: Facebook Usernames

by Blaise DiPersia

Facebook Usernames by Blaise DiPersia

From the beginning of Facebook, people have used their real names to share and connect with the people they know. This authenticity helps to create a trusted environment because you know the identity of the people and things on Facebook. The one place, though, where your identity wasn’t reflected was in the Web address for your profile or the Facebook Pages you administer. The URL was just a randomly assigned number like “id=592952074.” That soon will change.

We’re planning to offer Facebook usernames to make it easier for people to find and connect with you. When your friends, family members or co-workers visit your profile or Pages on Facebook, they will be able to enter your username as part of the URL in their browser. This way people will have an easy-to-remember way to find you. We expect to offer even more ways to use your Facebook username in the future.

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Daniel Ionescu, PC World

Jun 10, 2009 5:52 am

Facebook has finally decided to give its 200 million users an easier way to share their profiles. In about two days, the social network will let users chose an alias for theirFacebook profile on a first-come, first-serve basis.

Mark your calendar: on June 13 at 12.01 EDT you can grab a username of choice that will redirect to yourFacebook profile. At the moment, users’ profiles appear as http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=[string of nine numbers]. The new vanity URL selection will allow you to have a vanity URL for your Facebook page in the format http://www.facebook.com/yourusername. A notice on users’ homepage will also be available, with instructions on how to activate this new URL.

A lot of people are expected to start claiming their vanity URL, so if you have a common name, you should keep close to your computer late Friday night. Facebookrecommends choosing a username as close as possible to your true name, and the network will prevent the registration of a username that infringes a trademark.

Facebook fan pages will also be eligible for personalized URLs but with a few conditions: a page must have over 1000 fans and it muse be live on Facebook prior to May 31, 2009. Like with individual users, a fan page is allowed only one alias.

Vanity URLs are becoming an important part of one’s online social life, as it makes it easier for others to find you by just typing your name after the service’s URL (i.e.http://www.twitter.com/pcworld). Twitter and MySpacehave been providing personalized usernames for a while now.