coming

UPDATE: An "on your mark, get set" announcement has been posted on the official Facebook Blog.  According to designer Blaise DiPersia, it'll be time to "go" at 12:01 AM (EDT) this Saturday, the 13th.  DiPersia also provided the following screenshots if you're curious about what the setup screen and end result should look like. Original article: Generally speaking, it's much easier to remember the name of a person or business than a random, nine- or ten-digit string of numbers.  Everyone from teenage girls to career-oriented professionals should be happy to hear, then, that Facebook is supposed to make vanity URLs available in the near future. 

AT&T announced today that it will begin offering the Apple iPhone 3G S on June 19th. People will be able to preorder them starting today at 5pm ET. "iPhone 3G S is the fastest, most powerful iPhone yet, and we're extremely proud to offer it to our customers on the nation's fastest 3G network," said Ralph de la Vega, president and CEO, AT&T Mobility and Consumer Markets. "We're also pleased to offer these innovative phones and plans at incredible values, including free Wi-Fi access at nearly 20,000 hot spots." Pricing is as follows:

At eMetrics in San Jose, Google's Brett Crosby announced 4 new features that are coming to Google Analytics. The features are aimed specifically at the more advanced users of the tool. They are:

 Perhaps if labels make it easier for fans to purchase, they will buy more music; or so the theory goes.  MySpace Music, imeem and Spotify are just a few of the sites adding buy buttons.  Now some new players who each already have millions of website visitors are entering the online music retailing game.  

Google shouldn't be surprised if people are unhappy when they're told they'll "get" to pay for Android apps; this hardly sounds like an improvement over the price of "free."  But priced applications are en route to the Android Market, and the development may have a couple of beneficial effects.

Popular music site MuxTape was ordered to shut down by the RIAA back in August, but the site is coming back with a new concept, and that is to help bands get exposure. Ok, that was the goal the whole time, according to Founder, Justin Ouellette, but now it's only going to be a service for bands.

Anyone not already using Adblock Plus may want to make the switch soon.  Rumor has it that YouTube, Google's hard-to-monetize video site, is going to go after unprotected users by introducing some really big ads on its homepage.

Updates to the AdWords API arriving on August 19 mean developers will want to make sure they don't impact the data in their reports.