Google Plus is another social network and there has been a lot of buzz these days concerning the possible facebook decline. Until recently, you had to be invited to be able to join the new network but it no more seems to be the case. You may join google plus here : plus.google.com.
Vanity Url
Right now, Google is not allowing vanity urls; Facebook does. A vanity url is simply a personalized url. For instance, with Facebook when you sign up you can see your profile at this url : http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=xxx (where xxx is a numeric id). To have a personalized or vanity url, you may go to the username page to choose one. My vanity url on facebook is http://www.facebook.com/aswin.lutchanah. Moreover, on this page you may define your vanity urls for your facebook apps and pages provided they have a minimum number of users.
A google plus vanity url workaround can be found on this page : http://gplus.to. You only have to find out your google plus id and it’s found in your profile link (example : http://plus.google.com/116355647260442072627/). Here, it’s : 116355647260442072627. You copy this, go to the website and choose your own nickname to have a vanity url such as : http://gplus.to/aswinlutchanah. The problem is that anyone may choose a nickname based on the id he finds out on your profile; you might want to do this before someone else takes care of it for you. Anyway, it is only a simple redirection and nothing else. Google will definitely allow vanity urls soon. You may as well create your own redirection from your own website.
Take Care