Profiles News
The blog for Profiles news

With the latest improvements made to your Updates, you now can comment on the latest of what your friends are doing and keep the conversation going from within Yahoo!

You never have to miss out on what your friends are talking about and sharing across Yahoo!, Twitter, Flickr, YouTube, and more.

With this enhanced commenting feature, you can easily join the conversation with your friends and share what you are thinking.  Express yourself with either a short comment or a simple one-click “Like.”   

Start sharing what you care about from within Yahoo! and keep an eye out for more improvements.

In the spirit of the holidays, Yahoo! is encouraging our community to create a ripple of good around the world by doing random acts of kindness.  You in? 

Surprise someone by paying for their morning coffee.  Or drop off a warm coat at the homeless shelter.  Then update your Yahoo! status to inspire your friends and family to do something good for someone else.

Through the end of the year, you will see a heart in your Yahoo! Profiles status update box.  Click on the heart to shuffle through ideas for random acts of kindness.  And feel free to come up with your own random acts of kindness – we’re sure you have quite a few up your sleeve!

Once you’ve updated your status, check out what others are doing to spread kindness around the world at http://kindness.yahoo.com.

Based on feedback from you throughout the last few months, we’ve made some changes to your profile that will help you more easily share who you are on the Web with your friends. Here are the highlights…

First, you’ll notice that the layout of the tabs on the top of your profile changed and we added a fourth tab for you to access your Account Info. You can now mouse over these tabs to easily see options for each topic instead of having to leave your profile to find your settings. Don’t worry, if you prefer to use the “Profile Settings” link, we have kept that for you but just moved it down beside your profile photo.

Second, we made changing your profile photo simpler. All you need to do is mouse over your current photo and click the “Change Photo” link that appears. Make sure to post an updated photo of yourself to help your friends find you when they search for your profile in the newly designed “Find People” search bar (in the “Connections” module at the top right of the page).

Third, as part of these design changes, we wanted to put your “Updates” front and center. With the new “My Updates” section on your profile, you can select which of your favorite sites you’d like to share updates from, see what your updates look like, and even control who sees these updates via the “Manage My Updates” link. If you’ve already closed the “Share Sharing Updates From Other Websites” module, you can still add other websites by clicking “Share More.”

And finally, you’ll now start seeing Birthday reminders for your connections. We are excited to bring you this new feature, so that you’ll never miss an important birthday! Your friends will be able to see your birthday approaching as well if you share your birthday. Check out the Birthdays help section for more information.

Go explore the new look and functionality of your profile; it will make it easier for you to check-in on the things and people that matter to you most!

As a result of your feedback, we’re happy to announce that beginning today, your age will default to “hidden” while in the 35-day waiting period. Once your 35-day waiting period has passed you will have the option of hiding your age within your profile. To hide your age, simply log into your profile and click “Edit my Profile.” Then, select “Hide my age” from the age menu (appears beneath the “Gender” drop-down).

Though your age will still appear to you, it will not show to your contacts or to the public.

Q: With this fix, will I be able to edit my age?

A: Yes and no. This fix is specifically designed to impact users who are in the 35-day holding period (for more information on this, please see this post), giving users the privacy so many of you asked for. Once users are past the 35-day waiting period, they’ll have the option of hiding or showing their age and will be able to edit their birthday. If you are already past the 35-day period, you won’t notice a change as this feature was already made available to you.

Q: What if I just answered my security questions the other day—will this reset my waiting period or speed it up?

A: Neither. This will not impact your 35-day waiting period. You’ll still have to finish your account verification cycle before you’ll be able to edit your birthday. This fix just hides a user’s age while they wait for the 35 days to pass.

As always, please feel free to leave questions in the comment box below.

Melissa Daniels
Yahoo! Community Manager

I’m sure it’s happened to you before: you’re reading the homepage of Yahoo! and come across a great story, link, or have an epiphany that you’d love to share with the people you know. In the past, you had to log into your email and send a message to your friends and family, or, go to a third-party site to blast the update to the world.

With the introduction of the new Yahoo! homepage, sharing interesting tidbits has just become a little bit easier, and, a little less complicated.

The next time you visit the new Yahoo! homepage take a look at the top right corner (right above the “Popular Searches” module). Here, you’ll see “Hi, YOURNAME.” Hovering over this produces a drop-down menu that provides you with quick access to your profile.

Want to update your status without leaving the homepage? Easy! Just hover to the right of your name. Doing so will conjure up a “status” box, allowing you to plug in a link, message, or anything else you’d like- all without ever having to leave the homepage.

Lastly, if you’ve been connecting with people across Yahoo!, you should be seeing other people’s activity in your updates stream. In the “My Favorites” column (on the left side), you may see a row titled “Updates” (1). (Don’t see it? Click on the “Add” button (2) next to the “My Favorites” title and click “add” to include it in your list of favorites). If one of your connections has published an update, you’ll see a number next to the “Updates” name . Hovering over the “Updates” button will produce a pop-out menu that includes a snapshot of your connection’s updates.

Want to see what the rest of Yahoo! is up to? Try clicking on the  “everyone” tab.

These latest additions to the Yahoo! homepage make it easier to share what interests you with your connections, and, find new people across the network.

Melissa Daniels
Yahoo! Community Manager

UPDATE 7/28/09: Based largely off of the community’s response to this feature, we will be releasing a “patch” for this issue. This patch, which will be available on or around August 18th, 2009, will hide your age in your profile during the 35-day verification period.

Prior to August 17th, if you wish to have your age hidden, you must also hide your full profile (see below for instructions).

After August 17th, accounts that are in the midst of the 35-day waiting period, or, have just started it, will automatically have their ages hidden. Once your account has passed the 35-day verification period, you will have the option of hiding or showing your age. Thank you for your patience.

Following the announcement of the new age verification process, several of you had a variety of questions surrounding this new feature.  Below, please find a list of the most commonly asked questions on this new topic:

Q: How do I know if I’ve started the 35-day waiting period?

A: The best and easiest way to tell is to click on your profile, and then click on the “Edit Profile” link. While on this page, if you do not have the option of editing your age, you have triggered the 35-day period and should be able to edit your age information within the next 35-days.

Q: How will I know when my 35-days have passed?

A: Currently, the only way to tell whether your 35-days have passed is to log into your profile and attempt to edit your age. We’re aware that this is frustrating to some users and are working on ways to alleviate this frustration.

Q: Right now my age shows on my profile-how do I hide this while I’m waiting for my 35-days to pass?

A: Currently, the only way to do this is to completely hide your profile while you’re waiting for your 35-days to pass. To do this: click on the “Settings” link located at the top right of your profile. Under the “Permissions” tab, you will see a “Hide My Profile” link located right above the “Save” button. Click on this link, and a pop-up confirmation message will appear. Select “Hide My Profile”, and your profile will remain hidden until you decide to unhide it. (Note: Your display name will still be visible to others even if you hide your profile).

Q: My age shows as one thing on my new profile, but that’s not what I had entered. What’s the deal?

A: In the past, you were able to share your age with Yahoo! in several places, including: your profile, the old profile, and your Account Management page. For some users, they showed one age on their profile, and another within their Account Management page. This change consolidated this information. Once your 35-days are up, you’ll be able to edit your age back to whatever you’d like, and it should remain this way across the network.

Q: Once my 35-days has passed, can I hide my age?

A: Yes! You’ll be given the option of hiding your age from your profile. However, it’s important to note that your age will still be visible to YOU but not your connections.

Q: I am under 18 or my child is under 18-I do NOT want my/their age showing. How can I prevent this from happening?

A: Users who are under the age of 18 will not have their age show while waiting for the 35-day period to pass. However, their age does, and will, show to their connections. This can be removed once the user has passed their 35-day waiting period.

Q: Will everyone’s age be editable in 35 days from the time of this announcement, or does everyone’s day vary?

A: UPDATE: The 35-day period is variable-this means that this process begins whenever you change your security questions. To jump start this process, please go to the login screen for Yahoo! and click “I can’t access my account” — if you have not already selected a new security question, you will be prompted to do so when you log in. Otherwise, you’ll be randomly prompted to change your security questions when you log in. For more information, please read this post from Yodel, our corporate blog: http://ycorpblog.com/2009/04/14/a-24-hour-locksmith-for-your-yahoo-account/

Q: Why are you making this change? It seems like it opens us up for more fraud than before. What gives?

A: By making this change, your data is actually more secure. Previously, you could have used your birthday as one of your security questions. This means that if someone knew your email address and your birthday, they could potentially log into your account without your permission. Now, you cannot use your birthday to verify your account, which ensures that your account and your data is more secure.

Q: If it’s so secure, why are you showing my birthday now?

A: Currently, we’re only showing your age (which you can hide by hiding your profile)-not your actual birthday. This setting is triggered AFTER you have changed your account verification question, ensuring that your identity is not up for grabs whilst you wait for your 35-day period to pass.

Q: Why could we hide our age before, and can’t hide it now?

A: Previously, users hid their age by selecting a “blank” space from the dropdown menu. This is not the intended behavior of profiles. Once you’re able to edit your profile you’ll have the option of hiding your age by selecting a “check box.” You will still be asked to enter your age, but this will not be publicly displayed.

While I know that this change may come as a surprise to many of you, it’s important to note that should you wish to hide your birthday while you’re waiting for your 35-day period to pass, you’re welcome to hide your profile completely. To do this, please follow the instructions above, or, follow this help link: http://help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/profiles/permissions/02.html

Melissa Daniels
Yahoo! Community Manager

UPDATE 7/28/09: Based largely off of the community’s response to this feature, we will be releasing a “patch” for this issue. This patch, which will be available on or around August 18th, 2009, will hide your age in your profile during the 35-day verification period.

Prior to August 17th, if you wish to have your age hidden, you must also hide your full profile (see this post for instructions).

After August 17th, accounts that are in the midst of the 35-day waiting period, or, have just started it, will automatically have their ages hidden. Once your account has passed the 35-day verification period, you will have the option of hiding or showing your age. Thank you for your patience.

Over the past couple of days, a few of you have commented asking how you can change your age or birth date within your profile.

The profiles team and membership team are currently changing the way you enter your age on profiles so that your age is automatically calculated for you based on the birth date you enter.

We are also introducing a birthday reminders feature by Sept 1st that allows your friends to know when your birthday is coming up and vice versa, if you choose to share your birthday.  In order to do this, we changed the way you access your Yahoo! account when you’ve forgotten your password. In the past, you verified your identity by entering your birthday. Now, you verify your identity by answering a few secret questions. You may recall selecting your secret questions during a recent login.

While we transition everyone to this new verification procedure, you’ll still have the option of keeping your birthday as a way to recover your account for 35 days after you selected your secret questions.  To protect your data during this time, we’ve omitted the ability to change your birthday for 35 days after you change you answered the secret questions. At the end of these 35 days, you can edit your birthday through the profiles edit page and this will change your age.

You will be able to edit your birthday and age in 35 days from the ‘edit basics’ page: http://profiles.yahoo.com/edit/basicinfo

Please note: many of you are commenting on the fact that your age currently displays to other users. This has been the case with profiles since launch. Age, sex, and location has always been shown as public data.

Melissa Daniels
Yahoo! Community Manager

Today, Yahoo! 360 officially shut down.

Thank you to all of you who used the service over the years– we appreciate your feedback, loyalty, and dedication to the site, and hope you’ll work with us to improve your profile on Yahoo!.

If you did not retrieve your profile information or content from Yahoo! 360 (with the exception of blog entries), this information is no longer accessible.

However, if you did not download or export your blog entries you will be able to download and transfer entries until August 19, 2009. After August 19th, these entries will not be accessible.

Thank you for using 360, and welcome to profiles!

Melissa Daniels
Yahoo! Community Manager

The next time you check out your profile on Yahoo!, you might notice that we’ve added a new “Share More” module within your profile. This module (which is just like the “Share More” page) allows you to enter your username into the wizard and automatically scans the net for matching identities on other popular sites like YouTube, Twitter, and more. (1)

If you use a different ID for your Picassa, YouTube, Last.fm or Yelp accounts, you can add them one-by-one using the “Username” box. (2)

Currently you can share from 19 different sites (in addition to all of the Yahoo! properties that are found on the Updates page, and we’ll be adding more in the near future.

By linking your third party-sites with your profile you’re able to easily share your activity with your connections on Yahoo!. Once you’ve added a few third-party sites, you’ll be able to manage your preferences from the Updates page. As always, your options are: Anyone, My Connections, and No One.

If you don’t want to see this module on your profile page just click on the grey “x” in the corner and it will disappear. (3) Once you click the “x” you can access the same content by visiting the “Share More” page, found here: http://profiles.yahoo.com/share_more/

Melissa Daniels
Yahoo! Community Manager

Since we announced the closure of Yahoo! 360, some of you have had a few questions, and, some of you have run into a few bugs. Here’s a quick update on some of the issues.

Fixes

When I try to post blog entries on my profile I see weird characters or “?” marks throughout the post.

We’ve been able to pinpoint this issue and a fix will be pushed out for this problem on July 8th.

I downloaded my blog entries from the 360 download page but am unable to upload the file to WordPress because its too large. How do I fix this?

WordPress has adjusted their upload size to accommodate large blog uploads (they now support blog uploads up to 700mb). However, if your blog is larger than this, or, you’re still having trouble uploading your 360 entries to WordPress, please contact WordPress’ customer care team using this link: http://support.wordpress.com/contact/. The team over at WordPress will ask you for your blog file and information regarding your WordPress account. Once you send them this info you shouldn’t have any problem accessing your blog entries on WordPress.

I tried to migrate from 360 to profiles but keep seeing the error “You do not have a verified email address,” but I do. How do I fix this?
This issue has been resolved and the fix has been pushed out. If you’re still having trouble please contact Customer Care directly and let them know.

I see people in my “connections” that I don’t remember connecting with. What’s up?

If you’re seeing people you don’t remember connecting with or if you feel as though your profile has been compromised (your content has changed without you changing it, etc.) please be sure to visit this help page which will outline what you should do if your account has been changed without your permission.

To remove a connection, click on the “Contacts” tab in your profile (1) and then select “All Connections” from the dropdown. (2) From here, select the connection you’d like to remove. Then, in the contact’s details, next to “Connection” click “Remove.” (3)

Quick Tip: When viewing a list of “All Contacts,” you’ll notice that Connections have a blue “people peg” to the right of their name.

Known Issues

For a list of known issues, please be sure to visit the profiles Help Pages “Known Issues” section, found here: http://help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/profiles/cctop10/index.html

Features

I don’t receive an email when someone comments on my Guestbook or my blog entries in my profile. Without this how can I tell someone wrote me?

Don’t worry-this can be remedied! To fix this, go to: http://profiles.yahoo.com/settings/notifications and set your notifications setting to “Notify me when actions related to my profile occur.” This will ensure that notices are sent to your primary email address whenever something happens. (Not sure what your primary email address is? Log into your account info page and check the section called “Email Information”– here, you’ll be able  to see which address is marked as your primary email address).

Exception: A few BT Internet users have reported that they’re still not receiving notifications even after opting in. The team is currently investigating this issue and I’ll keep you posted once we know more.

UPDATE: This issue has been resolved for BT users.

In 360 I could assign my contacts categories, allowing me to “file away” my friends and family members appropriately. How do I do this within profiles?

To do this, click on the “Contacts” tab (1) and select a contact (2). When their information appears in the right pane click “Add” next to the “Categories” option. This will prompt a pop-out window that allows you to create your own categories for your contacts and connections. When you’re through, click “Done.” (3)

Not all of my blog content was migrated over from 360 to profiles-what’s the deal?

If your profile or blog (or any entries) were marked as “Mature” or “Adult” this content will not be migrated over into profiles. Profiles does not support or allow mature or adult content. If you’d like to keep your content you may download your entries. If you’re looking to share adult or mature content across Yahoo! you’re welcome to start a Yahoo! Group and publish your entries there as Groups does allow adult content.

If you don’t have any mature content or adult content within your profile or blog, please contact the Customer Care team to report the issue.

If you’re seeing an issue not listed here or on the help pages, please report the issue to Customer Care or to myself (if you haven’t done so already), and I’ll ensure that the issue is reported (if it hasn’t been already).

Melissa Daniels
Yahoo! Community Manager