Our Facebook movement is just a weekend old and already there is news in the form of this post from Mashable. The executive summary is that Facebook has responded — no doubt spurred to action by our incredibly small, er – modest protest. And while they aren’t lifting the username restriction (no usernames for companies with <1,000 fans) right away they will allow all of us serfs to claim page usernames on June 28th. Though this is good news, I chose my words carefully in the last sentence. It is reminiscent of the lowly serfs (smaller brands) getting the table scraps after the feudal lords (big brands) have chewed the mutton off the bone. Why the delay anyway, FB? It’s like the exact opposite of a staggered start where you give the runners with a disadvantage on the track a better starting position. What is the disadvantage that the big brands have? Huge budgets? Armies of marketers? As stated earlier, this is just plain unfair from the biggest player in social media. It also seems especially counter-intuitive to the spirit of this new media which thrives on transparency and equality. So we’ll wait our turn and get our usernames for our “little brands” in a couple weeks. Hopefully there’s more than table scraps remaining …

Thanks to Gregg Hennigan for the tip on the Mashable story.