Voice yourself: The future of Second Life Profiles

Actually, making the profile into a webpage is an interesting idea...

And really, I dont think would take that much space.. If you give everyone say, up to 50mb to work with, that's only like 50gigs of space needed, so a 250 or 500gig drive would leave plentry of space for the future.

And for blogs, there's plenty of blog sites out there.. SL doesnt need to get into that.

I'd like to see the ability to drop snapshots/textures into the text sections of our profiles, as we have already in notecards. Also I would like the added feature of being able to drop notecard files into theprofile...along with landmarks and any other file that we now host in our inventory.

You could distribute freebies, information, clothing with the proper permissions...

Actually..now that Ithink of it, it might be nice to have a tab called Store. Which could sell our items directly from our inventories. The person could check *add to store* on the properties box to show this in the tab in their profile. The treasure in a person's inventory is an untapped resource. I'm sure it would be as big a hit as profile surfing. I have so much inventory that I don't use but have no time to host a yard sale..this would be wonderful in helping us control our inventories by getting rid of things that just sit there. ....and it might help declutter the events of yard sales. I seem to recall some threads discussions on that topic.

These profile stores could then be searchable in Find.

It could also be organised by price, name, number of prims....as land has options to be relisted according to chosen criteria.

I would also like to see a new option in a shop like this to search by permission type. Actually that is something I want for our inventory. The short reason is it would help organise. I recently wanted to remove all no mod poses and no transfer poses to a folder of their own. I knew where they were located but they were mixed in with hundreds of other permission poses. I had to hand select each one. Alright..small hijack done. Carry on. : )

More room for your actual written profile. Right now it's this dinky little window that shows maybe a couple sentences. At the very least, some way to expand it. It's way to constrictive to really get your message out, and if you write more than a paragraph it just looks spammy in that little window when it isn't.

That would be the big improvement in my book.

I also think Interests should be expanded into personal/character interests. The current ones are so dry. What about sports, hobbies, intimate preferences? SL isn't just a building/scripting thing, it's a social place as well. I've seen Picks used for this, but you really need many more picks to really flesh something like this out.

Hell, with a robust selection of interests, SL could even work in a Matchmaker service.

I'd like the ability to rearrange and resize some of the things already in my profile.. to make it more customized to me.

I definately think that the photo album would be an excellent idea.. so many times I've found something I've liked, hit edit, checked creator, loaded the profile, searched through their picks for name of the store and location, only to find pictures of friends and family instead. Very frustrating..

I would like the groups section to be modified so that if you create a group, and select the option that allows group members to not be shown in the group list, the group should not show up in that persons profile.

Last logged in feature would be a nice idea.. it would help to see if something's been abandoned, or if you've put in an IM for something custom.. if the maker hasn't been online in 6 months, you'd know not to hold your breath.

There is alot of personal info that I believe should never be made public, but some things could be of benefit.. Kind of like a scorecard... something like.. number of VALIDATED abuse reports filed against.

Voice chat is an awesome idea... but as with other programs, like yahoo.. just because its there, that fe/male person wouldn't have to participate, just listen, or turn it off even.

As for store ideas.. I would like to have a list of people who have purchased an item.. handily available.. Say I make improvements to something.. or fix it.. and it's been available for a year.. there is no way to track down a years worth of people to send that update to. (except the courrier thing, but that requires obtaining more info than the average customer will give)

-------EDITED TO ADD

I would also LOVE if a profile showed when a user was online or not when it's opened from a means other than right clicking the actual avatar.. If I'm right clicking the avatar, I know that person is online.. if I'm rigth clicking an item in my inventory and select profile fromt he creator spot, I don't know.. I have to open find and do a search for the name. (You know, that little box that always says "unknown" ?)

I never noticed a way to do this before and if I could I would double-check and login but unable to. One that always comes to mind when working with Picks is the ability to drag n drop a landmark from your inventory into a newly created Pick. A lot easier than having to TP over just to make the Pick.

Does anyone find any real use in the "Account Type" or whatever it is called in the profile? I don't at least.

Also, that Offline/Online status in resident profiles doesn't always work. I usually have to search for them to actually determine if they are online or not. I guess get that worked out. I would actually suggest replacing it with some kind of icon status.

One good thing about the account type in a person's profile, is that if someone asks to borrow 500L citing that they are broke, and tells you that they will give you the money back on their next stipend.. well, If they are basic, you'll probably want to ask how instead of giving the 500L. -coughs-

I would love to see new features and functions built into the profile... however... I would hate to wait 10 minutes to look at a profile due to heavy server load. If it's going to add lag... I don't want it.

I could use...

Scheduler - I DJ in SL, and it would be excellent for people to be able to see my schedule in my profile rather than spamming my fan group.

Window Shopping - It would be fun and interesting to see what products people are selling, listed directly in their profile, with a teleport option for where they can be seen/purchased. This would be a great way to help get some L$ flowing.

Modular Profiles - It might be useful in reducing system resource usage to offer various new features and functions as something you can turn on and off... for example... if I don't have any photo's added to a "photo gallery" then that part of the profile doesn't load. Or, if I do have images in it... it would be nice to have the option to keep it public, private, or friends-only. The scheduler idea I mentioned above could be turned on and off, etc. etc. The less tabs that load in the profile... the quicker they will open, and the faster the content will update.

What I don't want at all...

Slow Loading Profiles - The important thing for me... is profiles should load quickly. If adding a photo gallery means a slower loading profile... I don't want it. This is big for me. I am not in the position to spend a few hundred USD to upgrade my PC to see someone else's view of SL.

I'd spend some more time on this... but I am about to pass out at my keyboard from staying up too late... in SL.

1.) I'd definitely like to see "last logged in" information. That way, we know if they're MIA, or we just keep missing each other.

2.) Mini photo album, so we'd be using our Picks for what it's intended for, instead of filling it up with all the great pictures we have of our friends and families. Offering us, say, 20 thumbnail spaces for photos would be cool. Photos could be opened to full-size with a click, same as opening up one from our inventories. Captioning abilities would be a plus.

3.) I'd love to see a list of the person's business locations in-world! That would be preferable to scrambling for their notecard, or using Find.

4.) Tagging on a small space under Interests for a short resume would also be nifty. People could list their scripting projects, modeling experience, and so forth. The current space just isn't enough.

5.) Expanded Note space. I use my Notes feature on a daily basis, and am constantly having to delete some information due to lack of space. Perhaps breaking it up, and offering note space for stream URLs, land/rental information, customer lists, misc. notes?

Can't wait to see what everyone comes up with.

Anything already suggested, but please include a switch on those feature that show personal infos, so that we can choose to not display it.

example would be the date last logged in. I don't want so and so to know when I was last in, because of stalking. ditto for online notification. any feature should have a box to make it active or not.

I agree completely.

I can't believe I'm the only person that finds the "interests" tab virtually useless.

Replacing that with a resume type function for 'public' consumption whether that's business terms, skills, a schedule for booking you or similar, as you choose would be much more useful.

I kind of agree with toggleable potential stalker information, certainly if we're going down that route I'd love to see the "what's my timezone" data displayed, and also an indicator for if my IM cap has been reached and if I am likely to respond to IMs offline. People who ask for help when they get in from work at 6pm, but it's 2am for me tend to get more abrupt answers, but a number of them would hopefully tend to NOT ask a question that's not vital at that point.

Maybe some additional "hidden" tabs that we can share with partners, chosen people (opt in) groups etc. (although groups might be best servered in the groups rewrite) so if I'm scripting for someone and want to ask a detailed question I can put it in my profile and post it for their eyes only rather than sending them an IM and a notecard and hoping they catch it. Granted this increases storage capacity, but it's no more than a notecard?

I'd like to second/third/whatever ordinal the "sell from profile" idea too. Maybe that could be limited to 8 items (say) if storage space is a problem, so people know if I'm selling that they can get some of my stuff that way rather than hunting for a shop?

Why can't they do updates on Mondays. I was suppose to get married on SL at 1 SLT but NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO due to a damn update, we gotta reschedule. Anyone got 10,000L to reschedule a wedding? Damn.

The update has been scheduled for today for some time now... and what in the name of all that is the color green does this have to do with profile features?

I'd like to be able to see everyone's classified ads, have more profile text space, and have a section for business affiliations, which would be like stripped-down group membership just for things like markets.

I love reading people's profiles. You are all fascinating!

I would like a notecard dispenser thingy built in the profile. Only gives you the notecard when you click on the relevant notecard button.

Rather than the big list of custom-built features in the original post, give us just two:

1. The ability to create our own tabbed sections, arbitrarily named.
2. The Big One... The ability to script our profiles like any other object.

Continuing 2: Allow us to create textfields, assign them variables, adjust their contents dynamically, give them touch() actions, etc. I picture a cross between what we have now and a UI attachment.

And most importantly, give them an inventory like other objects so that we have a method of distributing content to people wherever they are even if we are offline.

From these two could come all the other things people want, but through emergent design by players, not late nights of Linden sweat.

That is wonderful. I was actually waiting for this notion to emerge. That's what I thot earlier--and it is perfectly consistent with the "atomistic" approach of SL. Give a few simple shapes and make many wondrous things out of them.

Thank you graciously for the continued feedback, everyone. Some common themes are emerging.

Just wanted to tap in and post that I'm reading eagerly!

I want to sum up what I think of soem features

1.) Most importantly thgere should be an option of what you want to give for free. And to whom. So that could mean that the tab 1st life is not shown to anybody, instead it could be shown to either your friends, your friends and a group or a single citizen. the 1st life tab could also have more fields (kind of a 2nd profile). At times ppl should be able to choose to display the 1st life tab as replacement for 2nd life tab. Think of business meetings or whatever Where it is important that you are seen as who you really are. It would also be cool if one could extend the profile for a professional resume for looking for a job. (this could also be useful for 2nd life tab or 2nd life profile)

2.) To some degree I have mentioned that above, but I think we should NEVER by default display the last time somebody has logged in. I fear of my privacy. I dont want everybody to know hoe much time I spend and when I am online. That also would enable ppl to do thinks while you are often online with your properties or whatever.

3.) About rating and friends: I think the rating could make sense if it would be based of a trust network (like PGP worked/works). So I only want to take ratings into account that I know and/or trust - or of ppl that those that I trust trust. - So a rating would be displayed differently for everybody. I also would like to take notes about somebody that i can share with friends or groups. So I could see in a profile a comment that a friend of mine has written about somebody.

So: rather as to have centralized profiling, rating, note taking have circles and exchange of that data in general.

I also would suggest that everybody can make one tab of his own, that he can name and put fields and content as he or she wants. I always have the feeling that everybody is unsatisfied about the standard profile. Maybe those customised tabs could also be shared by a group or everybody, so that I can use a template - and that also would enable new kind of databases. You could automatically give this tab as a kind of member passport for example.

Generally I would like to have more possibilities of internal information rather than having to link to a website. But this is going to get offtopic, but I think every user should be able to make a diary and a small page. I think it is stupod to either launch an external browser or to use the upcoming internal browser. Many information only make sense inside of SL and doing web pages is just overkill (and not as quick as it could be).

Just to add that here, it is also not necessarily combined with the profile: I would like to have a calendar application where I can put my own appointments in and can import schedules of groups and places (so that can be done with calendar standards like iCal). It is THE feature I missed most from the start. Especially I tend to forget the time of events and I get no reminder, now. As I do not live in Pacific time(SL time) I always have to calculate. The reminder that would be integrated could also offer a teleport ( even automatically maybe). So then I could NEVER MISS A MEETING AGAIN .

Vinci

I know they don't give you a financial benefit any longer, but I *like* ratings. It makes people feel good to get them.

Rates I love them I rate back when i have a chance They do make you feel good these days when old times likemyselve gets rated in a filled club or sim

Keep rates because there are a few of us that do rate people

I too like rating others. I often do to those that I meet and have a nice converstion with. So we don't get paid for having a high rating? I just like to give them when I feel someone deserves some sort of recognition. Why get rid of them just because no one will be "paid"? They don't have to go away just for that reason. If they do have to do I hope they will be replaced by something good.

Ratings would be more useful if recieving one was a little more obvious. I've gotten ratings I only knew about because I happened to randomly check back through the chat scroll.

I like the idea of keeping ratings myself, however, since the recipient doesn't get paid anymore for them, we shouldn't have to pay to give them as well. I don't have a lot of linden to throw around so it hinders my ability to rate people. Anyway, that's my $.02.

Cheese and pepperoni.