ReadWriteWeb

We heard rumors about this for at least the last couple of weeks, but today, Facebook finally announced that it will allow users to pick and choose their own vanity URLs. Instead of http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=432123451, you will now be able to pick something like http://www.facebook.com/ihazvanityurl as your URL. Facebook will open this new feature up at 12:01am EDT on Saturday (that's 9:01pm PDT on Friday). At that time, Facebook users will see a notice on their homepages with instructions for how to obtain their new URLs.

Today, competing services hellotxt and Ping.fm both introduced features that let Facebook administrators update Facebook Pages. The pages, which also include the new Public Profiles introduced after the latest Facebook revamp, let companies or individuals promote businesses, products, or even public personas using a page that's similar to the standard user profiles.

There's a new landing page on Facebook that's designed to get families involved in sharing updates, photos, and videos on the social network. The extended family group invite page, available here, lets you create a private group for your family by inviting current Facebook members and entering in the email addresses of those who have yet to join.

Is Facebook after Grandma and Grandpa now that they have mom and dad? You bet.

InsideFacebook, one of the best blogs dedicated to Facebook, just released a new metrics product that tracks the popularity of Facebook Pages (also known as "public profiles"). PageData tracks the most popular pages on Facebook, as well as the daily and weekly top gainers and losers. Barack Obama's page is by far the most popular Facebook page with close to 6 million fans, while Coca-Cola, Nutella, and a page about Pizza follow with around 3 million fans.