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 4 of 8)
61. how do i get my pictures from my old profile back?
Posted at 10:13AM on Nov 24th 2007 by valerie
62. Listen, I don't want to be rude or to pile on, but this update just caught up with me, and I really, really wish I'd backed up the page now. Chief disappointment: I spent a long time uploading, editing, tweaking and uploading again to get my own personal photo on there as a background and have it not cut off at the top or leave a ton of white space at the bottom. Now it's gone and there is no customization at all for the rather lame palette of themes. The list of principles I stand for is now labeled "Love it" - hardly the same thing! Lists of favorites defaulted to a comma between rather than comma and space. And text boxes are glitchy - I couldn't delete or backspace to get rid of leftover code your conversion left behind, and can't type in a new AIM message from my profile page. What a mess! I'm sure none of this stuff was your decision, and here you are on the hook for the abuse, like John Scalzi and Joe Loong were in previous debacles. But really - every time I mellow toward AOL/AIM, the company does something new to inconvenience and annoy us. - Karen
Posted at 4:36PM on Nov 24th 2007 by Karen Funk Blocher
63. omigod,i hate this new edit system, it sucks!! you say we can get anything we want from other web sites, but we cant get layouts!!! my page waz awsome,now i cant even get my layout back!! wtf?? why did y'all have to change it, this is the worst upgrade EVER!! change it back,obviously everyone hates it soo why cant you give us what we want??!!!
Posted at 5:00PM on Nov 24th 2007 by luvinhollister95
64. I can't seem to get my profile to show, is there a problem? it's been gone for almost 2 weeks now.
Thanks
Posted at 8:55PM on Nov 24th 2007 by anita
65. how come we cant use edit in advanced mode?????????
Posted at 10:05PM on Nov 24th 2007 by jo32596
66. hey so you just changed some profiles including mine and one of my friend's. why? not all of the profiles were affected...? and also, now that they are changed, can u go to advanced edit mode? i liked my old profile better.
Posted at 1:54PM on Nov 25th 2007 by b.sommermeyer02
67. The new AIM Pages profiles are absolute garbage. All the fun stuff from the original AIM Pages Beta is gone and the profiles look clunky and pathetic. Additionally, the AIM Pages search function is woefully insufficient. If I want to see if certain people have the same interests as me, I have to scroll through pages and pages (I have NO desire to look at men's profiles) to come across someone in the same demographic as mine. AOL has really dropped the ball with the way it has dismantled the original AIM Pages Beta and ruined the detailed Search function.
AOL, your "updated" product is absolute crap. Of course, no one from AOL will respond to this or give an intelligent response. You obviously are not very good at what you do and absolutely clueless as to what your profile-using customers want. Seriously, are you ALL this stupid and useless?
- A long time, and very disenchanted, subscriber
Posted at 9:45PM on Nov 25th 2007 by K
68. Please, Please, Please change my profile thing back to what it was! I don't like this new thing you've done, and I can't read anybody's actual away messages and it makes me really mad because i do need to know what they say!!!! honestly!!!! I want my old page back!!!!!!!!! I HATE THISSSSSSS!!!!!
Posted at 10:15PM on Nov 26th 2007 by Sydney
69. How can I go back to using the AOL pictures product? It was more user friendly and fast. With this new AIM profile I cannot find a way to rearrange the pictures if i want to, I have to delete amd start from scratch, nor can I switch a picture from one album to another and what's worse is the profile embeded pictures as in a film strip...my son's head was cut off... i just don't like it.. maybe once they update it more and it becomes more user friendly would I like to use this new format. It is sooo time consuming!
Posted at 2:55AM on Nov 27th 2007 by dfineharmony
70. This new "upgrade" is awful! It has ruined my aim page, pictures, all my info I had done previous. I am truly disappointed in aol/aim, they've ruined everything. Thanks!
Posted at 9:34AM on Nov 27th 2007 by Serenity
71. I can not even access my aim page anymore, it says error. I can not pull it up to look at it or change it either. You people need to change it back to the old format. Don't change something if its not broken. My page is a disaster now. Thanks for ruining all the work I had done before and all my important info I had up.
Posted at 9:38AM on Nov 27th 2007 by Serenity
72. I'm not trying to be rude but I think your idea was stupid. If you read these comments most of them say that they want their old aim page back, as do I. Once again I would really appreciate it if you would be so kind as to change my page back to the way it was. I hate this new page I think it's ugly and the way it's set up is so stupid. Plus, I think it's also harder to make changes on it. The other page was so much easier to me and I think it looks better. If you want satisfied customers, I suggest that you change my page back and anyone else that wants theirs back to.
-Cassie Copes-
Posted at 8:56PM on Nov 27th 2007 by Cassie
73. I agree: the new format is boring. Why must we be shackled with mediocre simply because some people are too stupid to use the advanced edit mode? I know several users who routinely ask me how to gain access to "settings" on the AOL bar, and I never get tired of typing "roll your mouse to the very top of the window and click on the little box that says "Settings" then..."
I'm sorry but what you've done is insult those of us who really enjoyed being unique. Gone are the music modules, the picture modules, and other modules that enhanced our "personality". If you are content with this then so be it. But allow the rest of us to enjoy our AOL/AIM experience. Right now, things look like chit.
Posted at 11:42PM on Nov 27th 2007 by Autrice
74. PS to that: My name is not "dragon writer" as your page "maker" wants to believe. Some of us just have unique names and do not appreciate them being translated!
Posted at 11:43PM on Nov 27th 2007 by A. DelDrago
75. Man I really hate the way the pics look on this thing now! What's with the cut off top?
Posted at 9:34AM on Nov 28th 2007 by DAS
76. ty another reason to get rid of aol
Posted at 11:47AM on Nov 28th 2007 by mcfrle
77. who the *ell asked you to change or delete my profile page and pics? It took quite a while to get to work with pics thx to lame AOL. put it back. Why don't you ppl go get a life and stop fixing things that aren't broken. Ya might try some actual work for change.
Posted at 12:18PM on Nov 28th 2007 by anguss
78. I can't see my profile and I don't like the way it is now. What happened? Please put things back the was they were. I pay to be online.I really liked it the other way and noone notified me when it was changed.
Posted at 12:40PM on Nov 28th 2007 by Vorchidlady
79. First of all I want to say what you have done with the profiles sucks!!! We all liked them the way they were there was nothing wrong, broken, or needed fixed about them,, Second of all Where did all the information go that we have all previously entered.. I have tried editing my "new profile" an it won't accept it,, other ppl look at it an there is nothing there.. this is bs an u all know it.. instead of being a man about it an answering these comments an taking polls or saying you know no one likes this we are gonna go back to the old style u cop out an repost the same lame stuff over an over... I have been on aol off an on for 11yrs an u all are gettin worse at a record speed over the last year an half... we now have bots in the chat rooms something that never use to plague us.. u report sicko's for iming u an harrassing u nothing happens... what in the heck is goin on over there u all to busy sippin coffee an thinking high an mighty of yourselfs for coming up with something that is like myspace.. if u ppl want a myspace set up or a myspace look guess what they will go to myspace.. for one myspace is much better looking than the crap u have turned out profiles into second of all ppl have worked long an hard on their profiles to have u come in an ruin them... u didn't ask anyone if they wanted this u just did it.. just accept the fact that u are not the genuis that u thought u were an fix it!!! an for the love of god.. if u reply to this make sure it is a fresh answer an not the same tired crap that we been gettng!
Posted at 1:11PM on Nov 28th 2007 by Windsisterstears
80. i hade this stupid aim profile, first all my pictures are gone in my aol profile, i try to load them up new, but i cant set a comment so other people can see what kind of picture it is, they have to click on it... i like my old AOL Profile BACK!!
Posted at 1:42PM on Nov 28th 2007 by Soundy