Do Even More with AIM Profiles!
Posted on Nov 15th 2007 3:32AM by Joseph Manna
Filed under: New Features, Featured Items, Community Info, What's New, Profile Tips, Member Directory, AIM Profiles Blog, Profile Features
Now that AIM Profiles are here, many of you wanted to know how to customize them. I'll cover the basics and show you around eight different sections of your profile including how to add videos, music and slideshows.
The Basics
We couldn't have the fun of advanced stuff without understanding the fundamentals. You can manage your profile from one easy to remember address: editprofile.aim.com. Once you get there, you will have eight areas in your profile to fill in. Everything is all optional, of course. 
• About Me -- This section is self-explanatory. Enter anything you want, except for fancy HTML codes and stuff. You can put just about anything you want here.
• My Photo -- You can upload your favorite picture of yourself, a favorite pastime time or hobby. This will become the "minipic" which is the picture that will be displayed along the upper left corner of your profile.
• Personal Details -- You can choose to let people find you by name, display your first name on your profile, list your age and birthday, specify who you're looking for, your hometown, occupation, three favorite hyperlinks and up to four different quotes. If you really liked the old Member Directory format, this section is for you!
• Interests -- If you love lists like I do, then you'll like this. You can list your favorite music, TV shows, books, activities and more. The terms you enter are turned into links. You can click on these to search for other users with similar interests.
• Pictures -- You can upload all your favorite fun, wild and crazy pictures here. Do us all a favor and make sure they fall within the AIM Profiles product guidelines. This area uses the newly refined AIM Photos service instead of the AOL Pictures product.
• Themes -- No one wants to be plain and boring, that's why we have over 190 different themes that you can choose from. No complicated codes to mess with, just point, click and save to see the changes.
• Code Snippet -- This is where you are can add Web-based widgets like videos, music, slideshows, Wimzi's and much more! This is the only section that accepts plain-text HTML code.
• Privacy & Settings -- You can manage your profile settings to make your profile private (the default is public), display the date that you became an AOL or AIM user, latest updates you made to your profile, hit counter, comment and buddy request preferences. Additionally, if you want to delete your AIM Profile and start again, you can click the "Reset Profile" button at the bottom.
As you can see, AIM Profiles are easy to customize and offer you the ability to add cool things. You can check out my profile, where I'll always be tinkering around.
If you have questions about how to do something on your profile, let us know in the comments and we'll help. :-)
[Update: 12/5 4:24PM] I've responded to a lot of comments you've posted below in this follow-up entry. Thanks everyone for posting their thoughts and concerns.
~ Joseph
Reader Comments (Page 2 of 8)
21. well mine is still an AIM Pages Beta.. is that what I am suppose to have....
Posted at 9:50PM on Nov 17th 2007 by Geneva
22. It's obvious from what I've read that nobody likes this new adjustment and Joseph hasn't even responded to these comments he simply reposted his first comment form the 15th. To me this shows that he really doesn't care what we have to say as paying customers and the only way we can get our voices across to the board or to whomever makes these decisions would be to organize an AOL strike for either a Week or Simply a Weekend if enough people used IE instead of AOL just for a weekend it would show the directors and decision makers our feelings by dropping all of our information off of their servers and that would surely get their attention. The only thing these people understand is money and numbers! If they see those in danger I guarantee things will get noticed, through demand not choice. Which seems to be what is needed!
Posted at 10:12AM on Nov 18th 2007 by gwhite1812
23. Yea umm i really don't like this new layout. Can you please change it to the way it looked before?? Everything looks big & ugly.
THANKSS
Posted at 2:08PM on Nov 18th 2007 by miszcandy69
24. i can not add pictures to my profile something comes up every time and says something about an update what should i do?
Posted at 5:42PM on Nov 18th 2007 by betty
25. LOOK FOOLS! YOU NEED TO FIX THIS NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!
I HATE THIS! IT MAKES ME SOOO MAD!
I WANT TO SCREAM!! PLEASE FIX THIS!
get some new tech people to fix this!
cause obviously the current ones arent doing very good!
PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE!
fix this! its seriously ugly!
just leave my stuff alone and screw with somebody elses AIM page. cause i liked mine!
PLEASE IM BEGGING YOU! I NEED THIS FIXED!
WHY IS THIS LIKE THIS! OMG IM SERIOUS!
THIS NEEDS TO BE FIXED! PLEASE! AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!
thanks, hopfully. if its fixed. thanks.
:)
Posted at 7:24PM on Nov 18th 2007 by grapie14177
26. HELP! this looks retarted! im soo mad! i cant believe it looks this bad! i need it fixed asap! THIS IS SOOO GAY! i cant believe you guys changed this! at least ask first! so you better fix it! PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE! OMG THIS IS SOOO DUMB!!! PLEASE FIX IT! ALL MY FRIENDS HATE IT! AND I HATE IT TOO! I DONT WANT A RETARTED LOOKING AIM PAGE! JUST GIMMIE BACK MY OLD ONE!!! thanks. hopful.
Posted at 7:25PM on Nov 18th 2007 by grapie1417
27. All i have to say it LEAVE MY AIM PAGE ALONE!!! I DON'T WANT MY AIM PAGE CHANGED TO A STUPID PROFILE!!!!
Posted at 9:40PM on Nov 18th 2007 by sgafanzpm15
28. I see everyone is even more unhappy.......I came back to let you know.I backedup my profile when I saw you were going to change stuff as for your new code area nothing works in it......only music.I hope you guys add more areas for code that include flash other wise this should be called do less with aim profiles.
It seems aol users liked thier plain profiles while aim users liked thier edits options as soon as you add more code snips that work I will come back and show you what I was able to do that I can no longer do now :(
Posted at 10:28PM on Nov 18th 2007 by Versa
29. I agree with everyone, I hate the new Profiles. We always end up the losers.......WE pay, but NO ONE asks US for our comments before they go ahead and change things! If we are the ones paying for the service, how come WE can't have some input BEFORE you go ahead and make changes??!!!
Posted at 2:59AM on Nov 19th 2007 by Candi
30. Okay the votes are in........you have been voted off the island. Smoother your torch and leave quickly. Don't believe lil ole me......enter any chatroom and mention profiles. Stand back and watch the eye roll and profanity fly. So you made a mistake........HUGE but you didn't know any better. Simple! Fix it and you can stay.
You have a diverse group of people but we all have one thing in common.....we want to be original. The aims profiles with the advanced features gave us that outlet. Please resolve this problem quickly. It didn't take you that long to throw us all for a loop
Take care
Posted at 12:53PM on Nov 19th 2007 by heavncries
31. I have to agree with most of these comments.
It took forever to gget my AIM Profile to look how I wanted it to, and now it's all gone.
Is there a possible way to switch back?
If not, can you FIND a way to give us the option of switching back?
Posted at 4:18PM on Nov 19th 2007 by ikelsey8624
32. I think that it is WAY to obvious that NOBODY likes the new aim and that knowone understands it, not only that, but the advanced edit mode made it alot easier and was more fun. I dont understand in the first place why it had to be changed. You say that alot of users were confused by it, well please show me these users and prove it, becuase other than that we ALL want our old aim page back. I miss my page, this new one is way to boring.
sincerely,
pissed off user
Posted at 5:34PM on Nov 19th 2007 by starburst7a7
33. These new AIM profiles are horrid. I miss my old profile. I wish I could set it back to the old one. It's like looking at a poor version of Myspace. YUK!
Posted at 5:38PM on Nov 19th 2007 by Monica
34. ok i have no clue how to even talk to my friends in this new way how the heck do i talk to them i like the other way a HECK OF A LOT BETTER. =]
Posted at 5:49PM on Nov 19th 2007 by lovebug0110
35. i was just wondering how to delete my profile. my mom wants me to but i dont know how. what do i do?
Posted at 6:33PM on Nov 19th 2007 by mariah
36. I agree with all the other users comments ... this is not a good thing. It is not easy to use, it is not appealing, it doesn't work well and it's really frustrating to look at a profile that you've worked hard on and find it all gone .. pictures and everything just poof .. no warning, no input ..just summarily gone. Not a way to run a profile. I'd like it to go back the way it was as well. Lets vote, Joseph. Read the comments instead of feeding a prepared statement. Bend to the will of the people.
Posted at 7:44PM on Nov 19th 2007 by edwinaw2
37. omg im sorry but im kinda mad about how u changed it its so weird and boring now And everything got screwed up on my aim page grrrrrrr hiss hiss lol anyways if u can please like make it an option to like change it back or something cuz.... me and my buddys on my friend list will all agree with me.... i talked to them at school ..... u didnt need to change it it was better beefore please CHANGE IT!!!
Sincerly ,
A mad aol person!!
Posted at 10:26PM on Nov 19th 2007 by dramaprincessgrl
38. You have alot of nerve moving my work around. Why did you do that? My page was awesome. Don't you have anything better to do. This time you really messed up bad. I dont even want to work a page on here with this stupid setup, which you were probably sniffing glue or had not had any sex in a longtime while you were designing it. Put it back then send and email when you do. Peace out One thing customers dont like is to go to their page and all their stuff is missing and all screwed up. Thumbs down
Posted at 11:12AM on Nov 20th 2007 by cindee
39. I have a problem. I want to use my AOL pictures on my AOL profile, but they aren't showing up. That's okay, I can load pictures through AIM, since that's where I get redirected to every time, anyway. But my real name is on my profile! I had to obliterate my old profile on AOL, reset both AIM and AOL profiles several times, and my name won't go away! I want to change the name that is displayed at the top of the screen! I was up until 5am working with AOL to resolve the problem, but as it happens, there isn't much they can do because I'm not paying for my AOL; HOWEVER, AIM is a free service, and the root of the problem seems to be with AIM. This has got to be fixed.
Haven't you ever heard of an advanced editor? There is no good frigging reason why we should have to enter codes in special areas. If I want to put videos or music into my profile, I should be able to put the code into my profile.
Why can't we go back to the way things used to be? Why can't AOL and AIM just stay separate so crap like this doesn't happen? I do NOT have time to deal with this! I have a life to live just like everybody else and it isn't right at all for you guys just to go screwing around with stuff just because you people got bored with the way things were!
It's cool to have nice AIM profiles. It is NOT COOL to go meshing them into AOL profiles, because AOL profiles have already been changed three or four times since I started using the program almost four years ago. Profiles didn't even come up as webpages back then. So, what, once a year you people feel the urge to change things around? You know, some people don't like change. Some people really hate it, and don't have the time or energy to adjust to it.
We should have the option to choose what our profiles look like. STOP SCREWING AROUND AND PUT THINGS BACK LIKE THEY USED TO BE! Even...just back to the way things were when the profiles were first changed to web pages.
I like being able to enter more information. Yeah, that was the only thing I liked about the webpages.
The old pop-up and slide-out profiles AOL had when I first signed up in 2005 were cool! I liked having people's sounds play and seeing the buddy wallpaper backgrounds. The design was sleek and looked good. ALSO, there was no waiting for a webpage to load, and when I had a bad computer, it was irritating when the computer wouldn't let me load webpages on AOL, because I couldn't view profiles.
Nobody's happy. Listen to your users. Read the comments. And what's the deal with only responding to the first comment posted??? I AM SO SICK OF THIS CRAP IT MAKES ME SCREAM, AND I KNOW I'M NOT THE ONLY ONE!!!
Posted at 12:30PM on Nov 20th 2007 by drakovolf0219662
40. I also like being able to edit my profile from other computers, due to it being a webpage, and I can send the URL to non-users. So that's three things. The latest changes, however, have GOT TO GO.
Posted at 12:44PM on Nov 20th 2007 by drakovolf0219662