It looks like Facebook is already putting its FB.com to good use, and it’s not just for internal corporate email addresses. Visitors and companies can now use FB.com to shorten vanity URLs for corporate and personal pages.

Instead of visiting a page like Facebook.com/DogWalking, you can now visit FB.com/DogWalking, and you’ll end up on the same page. Similarly, you can visit FB.com/MarkZuckerberg or whatever the vanity URL is.

This may not seem like such a big deal since it only saves 6 letters, but in a world of 140 character tweets and short updates, it’s probably going to big deal to some people.

Thanks to George for the tip.

Mark Zuckerberg is currently discussing the new Facebook email system, and although he mentioned that everyone will receive @Facebook.com email addresses, it seems that the FB.com domain name which was recently acquired by Facebook, will be used for internal emails.

One very interesting tidbit that Zuckerberg just announced is the introduction of the Social Inbox for “filtering exactly the messages that you want to see.” I was curious to see if Facebook had acquired the matching SocialInbox.com domain name.

According to a Whois lookup, SocialInbox.com is currently registered to the Escrow Transfer department at Sedo, meaning it was sold very recently. DN Journal reported that SocialInbox.com sold for $4,970 at the end of September.

Interestingly, it looks like a company called HubSpot has launched a new service on SocialInbox.com, which is in Beta. According to the meta description for the site, “Social Inbox is a simple tool for professionals to more effectively use social sites like twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn to find and nurture prospects and leads.”

If Facebook ends up branding this new “Social Inbox,” did they just get preempted by another company by just a couple of months?

Earlier this afternoon, I speculated that FB.com could possibly be used by Facebook for the expected launch of the Facebook mail client/platform next week.  About an hour ago, Andrew Allemann published an article that confirmed Facebook was the buyer of FB.com after a Whois update.

I am now going to take a guess that Facebook may have acquired or worked out a deal for FB.CO from the .CO Registry. This is more of guess than was the FB.com purchase since the Whois still maintains the default “Restricted and Reserved names .COInternet”, but here’s why I am speculating:

If you visit FB.CO right now, you’ll see a MediaTemple server default page. If you visit many other 2 letter .CO domain names, they don’t resolve to anything. Strange that this appears to be pending set up but the other names don’t have any DNS settings at all.

Just before the O.CO acquisition for $350,00 by Overstock was announced, I had been looking at one letter .CO domain names to see if I noticed anything. As I recall, the e.CO domain name had a page announcing the upcoming auction, but just about every other domain name didn’t resolve… except for O.CO.  That name had a Media Temple server default page.

So… will Facebook or the .CO Registry have an announcement about FB.CO on Monday?  If Facebook did acquire FB.CO in addition to FB.com, did they do it for protective measures or to do something different?  Monday is going to be a very interesting day,

At the end of September, I wrote an article speculating that perhaps Facebook purchased FB.com in private. There hasn’t been any public acknowledgement about whether the company bought it or not (or who may have bought it if Facebook didn’t), and the domain name still does not resolve.  See update below.

Multiple websites are reporting that Facebook will be holding an invite-only event in San Francisco on Monday, November 15th, and it is expected they will announce a new email system or platform that Techcrunch has dubbed “Facebook’s Gmail Killer.” According to the folks at Techcrunch, this project has been referred to internally as “Project Titan.”

This is pure speculation, but it would be pretty neat if they launched this mail service on FB.com (if they own this domain name now confirmed that Facebook owns it). Assuming it is a mail service they intend to launch on Monday, they could also use another name like FacebookMail.com (which they already own), or they could just tie it in with Facebook.com.

In my opinion, launching a mail service on FB.com would be a great idea. I am sure there are still plenty of people who still think Facebook is just for social networking, despite the company’s growth and evolution. By using FB.com, they could somewhat disassociate from the Facebook brand, which could make a mail service @FB.com look more professional and serious. I think it would look strange to receive a job application from someone emailing me from Facebook, perhaps somewhat unprofessional in my opinion.

Google moved away from the Google name when it started its GMail platform, and I think it would be a smart idea for Facebook to use FB.com for mail, if they did in fact acquire the domain name.

**8:45pm Update**

As Andrew pointed out within the last hour, the Whois information for FB.com has changed, and Facebook is now listed as the owner (see screenshot below).  Additionally, FB.com is now forwarding to Facebook.com.

I read an interesting “Tweet” on George Kirikos’ Twitter feed this morning. According to Domaintools’ Whois History tool, the domain name FB.com changed hands on September 3, 2010. Prior to this change, the domain name was registered to the American Farm Bureau Federation. The organization owns FB.org, which might explain their willingness to part with FB.com.

FB.com is currently registered to DNStination Inc., and it is registered at Mark Monitor, the same corporate registrar used by Facebook for their Facebook.com registration. Could Facebook have stealthily acquired FB.com? The domain name does not currently resolve anywhere, but it would seem to be a good domain name for them to own, especially with the popularity of url shorteners.

Ironically enough, there is a page on Facebook called “Petition to make www.fb.com an official link to facebook is on Facebook.” The group currently has 75 members. Perhaps they were on to something.