AIM Pages: Our Blog

The AIM Pages Blog Has Moved

Mon, 16 Jul 2007 23:36:22 GMT

Hey buddies -- I mentioned in my last entry that we'd be moving to a new blog in a few weeks.

Well, that time is now (well, actually, it was last Friday, but close enough).

Here's the new address:

http://socialmedia.aim.com/category/aim-pages-blog

(We're going to get an easier-to-remember URL for laptop stickers and such, but you can use the one above just fine.)

The AIM Pages Blog is now part of the AIM Social Media Blog, which is basically five blogs in one. It's a group blog for AOL & AIM folks who work on messaging and community.

Since it's a group blog, we're going to pull in as many people as we can from different parts of the company to blog, to get you more voices, more help and more updates (which is something I keep apologizing for not doing enough of -- you're probably tired of it).

Now, what's going to happen here is that we're going to leave this blog up for a little bit, while we update some of the more useful posts and move them over to the new blog. When that's done, we'll redirect this blog to the new location.

While this happens, we'll be turning off comments here, but you can leave comments in the new blog, and you can still reach us at aimpagesteam@aim.com

I know we've got some open issues right now (including some people unable to delete comments), as well as our ever-loving problem of people not being able to wipe their profile and go back to a Member Directory profile. I will address both of those items and a few more things over at the new AIM Pages Blog.

Thanks -- Joe

AIM Pages Newsletter Changes; Plus Risk, Freaks, Preps, Bullies and More

Thu, 28 Jun 2007 18:20:43 GMT

Heya buddies -- this here's going to be my last entry... that I do soley so the AIM Pages Newsletter has something to point to, that is.

With today's edition, the AIM Pages Newsletter is going on permanent vacation. It'll be combined with the AIM Newsletter (which will continue to cover AIM and AIM Pages topics), so you'll get that instead.

But don't worry, we'll keep blogging. In fact, I'm working with the AIM Pages product folks to get some more help blogging, so we'll be able to blog more frequently, and talk more about profiles and what's going on in the social profiles world.

We'll be moving to a new blog within the next few weeks. I know I haven't been doing a super good job in posting frequently, so I'm hoping the new setup will make things more useful.

Some things that have been going on:

* The teams have been looking at the connections between Member Directory and AIM Pages profiles, and in particular, why many folks still can't get back to a Member Directory page after they delete their AIM Pages profile. It's been a sticky and ongoing problem, and I'm sorry we still haven't been able to lock this problem down.

* The team is also working on some pretty significant changes for later in the summer to how profiles work, and making them easier to work with. I suspect we'll be talking about it a lot more in the new blog.

In the meantime, here are a few interesting stories (well, they're interesting to me) about different things going on in the social networking and social profiles world (which is the world that products like AIM Pages, MySpace, Facebook, Bebo, LinkedIn, etc. live in):

* Social Network Risk: Tech gossip blog Valleywag has a neat graphic that shows the popularity of different social networks, mapped to the board from the game Risk.

Among other things, it shows that MySpace and Facebook divide up North America; Orkut is pretty strong in Latin America and India, and Cyworld is strong in Asia.

(When I played Risk, a winning strategy among our group was to take Australia and its two bonus armies, spoil the Asia bonus, bunker down, build up, then break out. That really doesn't have anything to do with this, I just wanted to say that.)

* Preps vs. Freaks: Sociologist danah boyd, who's made a (lowercased) name for herself studying teens and social networks, theorizes that we're seeing a split in the US, where the college-bound middle- and upper-class kids (jocks, cheerleaders and preppies) gather on Facebook, and the immigrants, goths, drama-types, emos, and other folks on the fringes ("freaks, geeks or queers") tend to go on MySpace.

It's more of an essay than an actual study; Valleywag takes a contrarian view and tries to dig up some data to help prove or disprove her theory.

* Unfaithfulness and Social Networks: This is a study featured in the UK's TimesOnline, which restates something we kind of know -- most people hop around on different social networks, and don't limit themselves to just one social network. And this isn't a bad thing.

* Facebook, Privacy and Yearbooks: The Washington Post talks about a Bethesda, Maryland high school's yearbook staff, which under a time crunch and needing photos, grabbed pictures from people's Facebook albums and included them in the yearbook, without permission or giving credit. That wasn't such a hot idea.

* Cyber-Bullying on the Rise in the US: Today's BBC News reports that a Pew Internet & American Life Study says one-third of online teens in the US have been victims of cyber-bullying: People using online methods, like profiles, e-mails, IMs, message boards and blogs, to taunt, spread rumors, post personal info, and otherwise harass other people.

It's important to not lose sight of the fact, though, that "...teenagers still think that the majority of bullying happens offline."

There's a lot of stuff going on in the social networks and social profiles world, and you're a part of it (even if you don't realize it -- or even care).

Thanks -- Joe

Tags: aim pages, social media, social networks, facebook, danah boyd, risk

Spiff Up Your Profile With the Custom HTML Code Field

Thu, 14 Jun 2007 20:58:51 GMT

Hey buddies -- here's a quick reminder on how you can use the Custom HTML Code field to spiff up your profile with polls, flash games, slideshows, movie clips or just about any other bit of embeddable HTML code.

A word of caution: If you're not sure what you're doing, you can end up "breaking" your profile -- like it doesn't act the same, or starts to render funny.

However, if you stick to cutting and pasting embeddable code that other Web sites provide, you should be in pretty good shape. Just be careful.

As with most things, the first thing you want to do is go to your profile -- when you've signed in, click the "Edit Page" button at the top of the screen:

This will put you into Quick Edit mode. Click the "Custom HTML Code" tab on the left. This will show you two fields: A Title field, and a Code field where you can paste the code. Simple, and yet very powerful:

Now, you can hand-type any valid HTML code you want, but most people are just going to paste in embeddable code that other Web sites give you. This can be everything from embeddeable Flash slideshows, games, quizzes, video players and other doo-dads and widgets.

Where ever you are, just look for something that says "Embed This," "Paste This Into Your Web Page" or something similar.

(Sorry to be so vague -- this is just a really open-ended proposition. Which is why it's so useful.)

When you're done, click the "Save Page" button, and you're done.

Now, the finished object that you pasted into the Custom HTML Code field will show up in the center column (because it's wider), in most cases above the comments.

In my ReadyAIMJoe profile that I use for testing, I've moved things around a bit, so it's at the very bottom; here's my example using some music player code from iLike:

So, you can pretty much do what you like in the Custom HTML Code field.

Have fun, and be careful.

Thanks -- Joe

Tags: aim pages, custom html code

AIM Pages Publisher Install Successful

Tue, 05 Jun 2007 18:48:29 GMT

Hey buddies -- quick note: The AIM Pages/Publisher install that I mentioned yesterday was successfully installed this morning, between the 4AM and 5:10AM EDT. There were brief outages as the servers were bounced (restarted), but no lasting problems.

The install was primarily on some behind-the-scenes services, so there isn't anything in there particularly user-impacting that you'll see.

Thanks -- Joe

Tags: aim pages status

Update on AIM Pages Status

Mon, 04 Jun 2007 22:34:11 GMT

Hey buddies -- here's some updates from the AIM Pages operations folks:

* Good News: The AIM Pages data migrations were completed over the weekend. That means we shouldn't see any more storage-related "under construction" error messages.

* So-So News: The Ops folks attempted an install this morning at 4AM, but ran into some problems and had to back out the changes. They will try again at 4AM EDT tomorrow morning (Tuesday, June 5th). There may be intermittent outages during this time.

Thanks -- Joe

Tags: aim pages status

A Migration and an Install Coming Up

Sat, 02 Jun 2007 00:34:35 GMT

Hi folks -- got two things coming up this weekend:

* The AIM Pages operations team will be doing another AIM Pages data migration midnight Saturday; as last time, AIM Pages will basically be down from midnight to about 6AM EDT -- during this time, you won't be able to make changes to your profile, and you may get the "Under Construction" message.

For those of you keeping count, this will be the fourth in a series of data migrations that the team is doing. There's a lot of data to move, so they have to break it up into several stages.

* Also, early morning Monday, June 4th (at 4AM EDT), the AIM Pages team will be pushing out another release. Not sure what changes (if any) users will see after the install; I will check in with you again on Monday.

Thanks -- Joe

Tags: aim pages, aim pages status, aim pages scheduled maintenance

Scheduled AIM Pages Migration Starting Midnight 5/31

Thu, 31 May 2007 21:31:23 GMT

Hi everyone -- the AIM Pages operations folks are going to be doing another AIM Pages data migration starting at midnight tonight (Thurs/Fri) -- it should last until 6AM EDT Friday morning (June 1).

AIM Pages will basically be down; during this time,you won't be able to make changes to your profile, and you may get the "Under Construction" message.

The AIM Pages team is moving data onto new hardware, so this is the third in a series of data migrations.

Thanks -- Joe

Tags: aim pages, aim pages status, aim pages scheduled maintenance

Why You Should Add a Photo to Your Profile (and How)

Thu, 31 May 2007 14:52:47 GMT

Hey buddies -- so, looking around the AIM Pages profile landscape, I see that a distressing amount of people still haven't uploaded a picture of themselves (or a picture representing themselves) to their profiles.

It's not just that people are visual creatures, looking for eye candy; there's a practical reason, too: the photo that you upload for your profile is also used in your minipic, which people see when you invite them to be your buddy.

If you get a Buddy Invite from someone who just shows up with no photo (just a generic gray silhouette), do you think you'll be more likely or less likely to add them as a buddy?

Maybe I'm shallow, but I tend towards the picture -- it's more appealing, it shows the person has put some effort into their profile, and it gives you more of a sense who they are.

Plus, uploading a photo to your profile is really easy. And you don't even have to use a photo of yourself -- you can use a photo that represents your personality, or even create a cartoon version of yourself by making a WeeMee (which is what I'm going to do here with my ReadyAIMJoe profile that I use to mess around with).

* First, you need a photo. I made a WeeMee, then took a screen shot, cut it down to 200x200, and saved it on my computer as a gif file:

* Then, go to your profile (make sure you're signed in, and click the "Edit Page" button near the top of your profile:

Pretend you don't see my old picture over on the left.

* This will put you in Quick Edit mode -- from there, just follow the numbers:

1. Click the "My Photo" tab to get to the photo-picking.

2. Click the "Browse" button and choose the photo you want to use from your computer. You can use three photo formats: GIF (non-animated, sorry), JPEG or PNG files.

3. Click the "Preview" button. You have to do this -- it will show you the photo as it's going to be published.

Remember, the max photo display size for that spot is 200x200 pixels, so photos bigger than that will be automatically resized.

Photos that aren't square won't be cropped, stretched or squished, but they won't fill up all the available space. Preview will show you what the photo will look like when it's live.

* After you see your preview (you can title your photo if you like), click "Save Page" to publish your updated profile:

* And that's it -- here's what it'll look like in your profile:

Well, your WeeMee won't look like mine. That would be weird.

About Photo Sizes:
***********************************
Remember, the max size of your photo is 200x200. It will look the best if you pick that exact size (since it won't get shrunk or stretched). Also keep in mind that your photo will also be used for two different thumbnail sizes, 75x75 (for Buddy Galleries and Buddy Invites):

And 40x40 (for the mini-icon at the top of your profile):

So try to pick something that will work at each size.

Hope this helps you add a pic to your profile.

Thanks -- Joe

Tags: aim pages, aim pages tips, quick edit mode, my photo module, profile photo tips, profile photo

AIM Pages Status

Thu, 31 May 2007 00:25:06 GMT

Hey all -- so following up on some "AIM Pages is under construction" error messages from the last two weeks -- the first outage was a storage problem that started 5/17, and then reoccured on 5/18. Both of these were taken care of.

The following week, on 5/23, the Operations folks started a multi-part migration, moving all of the AIM Pages data to new hardware. That work is ongoing -- the install window usually starts at 3AM Eastern time, and usually ends at about 8AM (there might be some residual effects for a bit after that.)

I will try to give advance warning for the next few installs.

In a marginally-related item, satirical newspaper The Onion takes a look at how outages affect online social networks; in this case, they set their sights on MySpace: "MySpace Outage Leaves Millions Friendless."

Thanks -- Joe

Tags: aim pages status

Resolved: 5/17 AIM Pages Outage

Thu, 17 May 2007 15:51:59 GMT

Hey buddies -- sorry, I was a little late getting into my mail today. Earlier this morning (starting at around 8:30am EDT), we had some AIM Pages problems, causing people to see an "AIM Pages is under construction" error page.

The problem was traced back to some storage issues -- the servers were "bounced" (restarted) and we should be all-clear now.

Sorry for any inconvenience.

Thanks -- Joe

Tags: aim pages status