How Long Have You Had Your Screen Name?

Hi folks -- AIM Pages Team Member Jeremy had an interesting find yesterday: A group of University of Michigan students have been doing a little "how long have you had your screen name" contest over at their LiveJournal group. (Guess they had to do something to pass the time before their loss to Ohio State last weekend.)

Anyway, their method for finding the date was looking at the "Member Since" field on the updated AIM Pages profiles.

With the new release last week, all AIM screen names now have a basic AIM Pages profile, that includes "Member Since," "Time Online" and "AIM Fight Score."

The Michigan folks noted (correctly) that going to

http://www.aimpages.com/[SCREEN NAME]

will pull up this info (you don't even need to put "profile.html" after the screen name).

Here, you can see the info I'm talking about on Jeremy's profile (which he's substantially customized from the basic model with a theme, more info, pictures, etc):

However, a few people had noted some problems -- for some folks, the date wasn't showing up, and for others, the year was wrong.

Jeremy and the team did some investigating, and they found a few things:

* For certain folks, the "Member Since" field won't show a date if that screen name is offline.

Also, for some other AIM-never-been-AOL screen names, the date information isn't being passed correctly.

The team is looking at fixing this (it'll most likely be an AIM host-side fix).

* Also, it looks like that because of a difference in date formats used for AOL and AIM accounts on the back end, AOL account dates that show up in AIM Pages will be off by 10 years.

There may be other issues with the date info, and I'm not sure how it will display for people who may have interrupted and restarted particular screen names, etc.

So until we get this fixed, take the "Member Since" info that you see in AIM Pages Profiles with a grain of salt.

Thanks -- Joe

Tags: aim pages, aim pages profiles, member since

Written by aimpagesteam Blog about this entry

This entry has 3 comments: (Add your own)

#3 Comment from rkiner2006
12/5/06 9:21 PM | Permalink

I have had my screen name for over 20 years any other names come close?
#2 Comment from bhbner2him
11/24/06 12:21 AM | Permalink

Howdy, Joe! We meet again. I just designed my aim page tonight. And it says I'm a member since, tonight! Although I've been an AOL member under this screen name since 2/08/05. Does this mean I am younger, too?! - Barbara
P.S. - Hats off to whomever! I am fairly technology challenged, yet I worked in the advanced mode with no problems. ;o)
#1 Comment from ddshornys
11/22/06 12:35 PM | Permalink

Thanks! Joe

I was wondering about the date, just a moment ago....

DdShornys

AIM Pages: Our Blog Public Journal
Back to Journal	Archives \| Alerts x Entry Alerts Comment Alerts \| Feeds

AIM Pages: Our Blog

How Long Have You Had Your Screen Name?