Feedback Requested: Guest Pass
UPDATE: Thanks to your feedback, this feature has been implemented! Now, whenever you get an invitation to connect from another user, you can preview their profile before confirming them as a connection.
Back in October when we launched profiles, several of you noticed that when you initiate a connection request with someone who has a private profile you’re unable to see the potential connection’s profile until you accept them as a connection. Based off of this, a few of you mentioned that you’d like to be able to view a person’s full profile before accepting that person as a connection as this would allow you to screen potential friends/connections.
We liked this idea and have toyed with it a bit, and would like your feedback, but first here are a few more details on how a “Guest Pass” would work:
You invite “Joe” to connect. “Joe” is then given a “Guest Pass” to view your profile while they decide whether or not they want to accept your invite. With this Guest Pass “Joe” can view your profile but cannot send you a private message, post to your guestbook (if you have it enabled), or view any Updates that are set to be viewable by “My Connections” only.
Once “Joe” decides to accept your connection request he’ll receive the same level of access as any other connection. However, if “Joe” decides to deny your request the Guest Pass will disappear.
Based off of this information, we’d love to hear what you think! Please leave your thoughts in the comments section below!
Melissa Daniels
Yahoo! Community Manager
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- 174 Comments
April 23rd, 2009 at 7:46 pm
I have been a member of Yahoo for @10yrs. My son introduced me to you and the computer about the same time and I have never left. Your ideas on the Profile Preview is very good. I have issues with my personal people profiles so I treasure my security.
August 1st, 2009 at 4:14 pm
Who gave you permission show my profile plus my age their are some things we ladies like to keep private remove it or lose me thanks Marie
April 23rd, 2009 at 8:22 pm
Great idea…keep it up!
I’d like to see Y! Personals somehow merged into profiles. I know the last discussion a lot of people mentioned they don’t want to be available by search but I’m sure there is a happy medium.
June 2nd, 2009 at 5:49 am
Will the Yahoo have the same features as the Yahoo 360 like blog log, and blog tag which puts all the blogs in catagories? I hope so because I need something like that. That is why I chose Yahoo 360 because of the way it is set up. Can anyone tell me if they have seen anything like yahoo 360 set up?
April 23rd, 2009 at 8:33 pm
Melissa,
I think that’s a great idea. I also think it’s something which should be initiated at a later date when all of the features of the new Profile have been implemented. Once blogs, photos and any other potential new modules have been added and debugged THEN it would be time to start allowing limited access for guest passes.
To tie this in to an earlier suggestion, “Guest Pass” could be one of the different categories of Connections with it’s own fully customizable privacy settings. Then all users could control exactly which modules and information are viewable in these circumstances. Of course there would have to be a preset minimum allowable content (such as the contact card) but anything over that should be controlled by the user.
April 23rd, 2009 at 9:17 pm
good idea,
I think it would help, especially for profiles that are shut off completely, the receiver gets to see your about me and comments, but all else is blocked unless public already.
I think it will definitely break the ice for new connections better.
I think viewing the about me and comment section of an individual is enough for a person with whom the individual is trying to connect to.
if you want the person to be a connection anyway, seeing your commentary and about me, should be allowable.
the commentor above made an interesting point, perhaps profiles can be more forthcoming with the future.
My guess,GUESS, is that profiles will not be adding so many modules. I mean, that is what mash was, was it not. Or at least profiles will not add modules on the main profile page. If more pages are added perhaps, but that engenders a merger between my yahoo and yahoo profiles.
I think you guys at profiles would do good to clear up folks expectations. You added 360 to profiles without notice.
April 24th, 2009 at 12:40 am
I would like to read a profile before I accept someone… I just accepted someone and I don’t know who she is or why she wanted me to attach to her…
April 24th, 2009 at 1:12 am
I ILKE it….SOME people dont have the time for all that crap. espesually from freeks NIce to meet everyone———newbey
April 24th, 2009 at 7:29 am
I like the old yahoo member directory better. It gave a person the option to browse other members in their area or other locations of interest. Now you have to actually know someone before you can attempt to make a connection. It’s not any fun anymore. It looks like I’ll migrate to facebook instead.
July 1st, 2009 at 1:47 pm
i agree , i think too , if i want to brows the profiles
i should be able to do this without having promission from this person..
sometimes i just like to browse throgh profiles to get some ideas or just to see what other members have done or to see if there is someone ith the same intrest…
oass or no pass ,how do i know to give someone a pass if i don’t know them.. so jst leave it open for eveyone to see and if some members like there private profile well they can sett it on private or to open there own website..
April 24th, 2009 at 1:31 pm
it all sound great to me.
April 24th, 2009 at 3:10 pm
I think it sounds great but then its more like the myspace — the been able to look at the other profile before adding part.
I am still learning how to use the PASS,who can I give a PASS to? Does the e-mail address matters (only yahoo users can get the PASS or what?)
June 21st, 2009 at 3:46 am
What is this about a pass? What is a pass, and do I need one?
April 24th, 2009 at 3:41 pm
I think it sounds great – BUT…. I’m not getting what this is about…
What’s the point of being here? Sure there are tweets… but tweeting is for people who don’t have a life. (sorry, but true). There’s no sharing pix, blogs, hot artists, movie titles…
The little content that is here is so hard to follow that 98% of us never bother…. (how can I tell with 40 char’s if someone’s opinion matters?)
The team really needs to re-evaluate and take some outside criticism… this isn’t a 360 replacement… and it’s not anything anyone will use or take seriously.
April 28th, 2009 at 11:39 am
Hi Pokester,
Great question. Your profile isn’t supposed to be a “destination site” it’s actually just supposed to be a universal access point for your profile information and content. We know that across Yahoo! there are a lot of ways to edit your information, share your information, and broadcast your information. This is just one way to manage all of that.
-Melissa
April 29th, 2009 at 12:16 pm
So, the new Profile is NOT to be the replacement for 360°, is that what you’re saying? With all of the available features, update notices, communication methods and other features still pending it sure seems like a destination.
From the 360° team blog at http://blog.360.yahoo.com/blog-1qCkw2Ehaak.hdNZkEAzDrpa4Q–?cq=1&p=59806
“Finally, let’s get down to the nuts and bolts of what this means to you and your 360 account. We’ll migrate your profile photo, your nickname, your friends lists, blog posts and blog comments…..
Matt Warburton
Yahoo! Community Manager”
This sounds to me as if the Profile is supposed to be a destination. Since there is no blog.yahoo.com to include as an update, it seems only logical that it will have to be included as an integral part of the profile itself, meaning anyone wishing to see their friend’s blogs will have to go to their profile to do so. That also sounds like a destination to me.
April 29th, 2009 at 3:12 pm
Heir,
You’re more than welcome to use it as a destination property, but for most people, in the past, using your profile was simply something that you did to update your contact information and share bits about yourself. That’s what this profile does– if you want to use it to do more (or use it as a destination property) you’re able to do so, and we’ll continue to add features that allow you to do this. But at it’s core, for most users, it’s a way to easily manage your personal information, all in one place.
-Melissa
April 29th, 2009 at 5:25 pm
I have to confess that I’m somewhat puzzled by your response. Most of what I’d read in the 360 blog had led me to believe that the new Profile would be a replacement for 360 itself, making it the closest thing Yahoo! has to a social networking site. If this is not true and the new Profile will not be the destination which 360 was, does this mean there will be no Yahoo! destination for social networking?
May 6th, 2009 at 6:41 am
Looks like they may have dropped some of their grandiose plans for Profiles. Now, maybe they’ll consider bringing back existing functionality, such as aliases.
Maybe they realized that people weren’t looking for all these changes that they’ve been making?
May 17th, 2009 at 8:25 am
i think thats cool and every thing but i think that they should only be able 2 look at your profile and your intest and stuff typed down on your intrest and movies and music and stuff like that.
June 20th, 2009 at 3:40 pm
Yahoo must really want to drive away all it’s members. First you had the “Members” area. A place where you could search by full or partial YAHOO! ID, First Name, Last Name, E-Mail Address, Keyword
Gender, Age Range, Marital Status, or Location. Then came 360. The profiles were better yet the search function was Age, Gender Location & Interest.
Now we have profiles. No search by anything but name, You have to friend everyone by picture JUST to see if they have the same interests in short it’s what makes Facebook the most annoying.
So how about modeling this new thing you folks came up with after MySpace? Bring back the functionality of the Members the coolness of 360 & the look of Myspace.
April 24th, 2009 at 4:30 pm
it sounds like a great idea.
April 24th, 2009 at 5:17 pm
Melissa,
I’d like to echo Tommy’s sentiments. We have been patiently suggesting ways for you to change the new profiles for the last six months but apart from a few very minor complicated changes and unneeded bells and whistles, nothing has been implemented from all of our suggestions so please stop asking us stuff like “hey we were thinking about …. and wanted your feedback”
In a nutshell as has been expressed a million times on here already, what we want implemented are as many features of the old profiles that worked (pretty much everything except member search) and that can be added to the new format ASAP
THEN you can ask us a million questions about what else you would like to put to make them more like facebook and twitter or whatever is your ultimate goal.
Enough is enough. I feel like I am in the ER with multiple system life threatening trauma and the all the ER Doc keeps saying is “Hey Steve welcome to the ER, the Trauma team is currently having a meeting in the conference room about you and we were thinking about asking you if you needed a pillow or an extra blanket, how would you feel about that? Steve? Steve?”
May 20th, 2009 at 10:33 am
LMAO!!!! so true, so true….
April 24th, 2009 at 5:19 pm
Sounds like a good idea. I concur with Heir To A Dying Day that it would also be useful to add this to the privacy controls of various modules; so that one could allow guests to see as much or as little as you please.
OT: While expanding the privacy options, I’d like to have a way to extend visibility of some modules to fellow Yahoo! Groups members, without opening those modules to the public and without needing Connections to them all. This would work best if the options were a list of checkboxes (rather than a selector), and even better if the “Groups” option had an expander that would allow for the selection of individual groups. Just saying… (since there is no Suggestion board for Profiles).
April 28th, 2009 at 11:49 am
Hi Shal,
Nice to see you here.
You’re right, there’s no suggestion board for profiles, but this is definitley the right place to pass on feedback like that. Thanks for sharing.
-Melissa
May 20th, 2009 at 10:36 am
Great, something else for them to have a meeting about then impliment something else we dont need. Heres a great idea, how about listning to everyone and bringing back the basic stuff we use to like, you know – blogs, photos, stuff that worked!
April 24th, 2009 at 6:37 pm
Yeah. Or you could just only add people you are actually friends with.
April 24th, 2009 at 8:00 pm
Great idea!
April 24th, 2009 at 8:46 pm
Thank you for writing to Yahoo! Profiles.
I understand that you are receiving an error message that your profile
cannot be retrieved. I apologize for any inconvenience this may have
caused you.
Please be assured that we are aware of this problem and are working to
fix it. Our new profile on Yahoo! product is currently in BETA mode and
we’re fixing some of the quirks associated with our launch.
We have identified the cause of your error and we’re working hard to
resolve the issue as quickly as possible. We apologize for any
inconvenience this may cause, and we appreciate your patience while we correct this bug.
THIS IS A LIE! You are not doing a damn thing to correct this, since it has been over a year ago that I initially made you aware of this problem. This is just a stock answer some computer generates and sends back to me!
April 26th, 2009 at 6:32 am
That’s funny these new profiles haven’t been around 1 year yet.
April 28th, 2009 at 12:34 pm
Please forward the issue and the customer care ticket (including the case number– usually starts with a “K”) to yahooprofiles [at] yahoo [dash] inc [dot] com and I’ll see what I can do to help or provide additional information.
-Melissa
April 24th, 2009 at 9:09 pm
Just do something that enables us to view a person’s profile who is trying to add us. I’m getting invites from ppl I don’t know and have no way to see if I would care to know them. The way you have it now is just plain insane. I don’t know what you ppl were even thinking. Why oh why can’t this new profile just work more like 360. By that I mean the same features. It used to work great till you ruined it. I get the need to do away with the Alias profiles and lump them into one, but it doesn’t mean you have to make it totally differnt and plain juvenile if you ask me. The thing is these ppl are seeing our profile some place (maybe the old 360) but there inviting us and we should be allowed to view them unless there marked private and then we don’t have to accept them. I just recently had to delete two connections after accepting in order to view them. Not exactly my kind of ppl and yet they had full access to me obviously. The point is had I been able to view their profile it would have saved me that.
May 14th, 2009 at 10:19 pm
I agree TOTALLY. It is really “much ado about nothing”…or…KISS: “Keep It Simple Stupid”! I want to be able to view a person’s profile before deciding if I want to chat and/or add them. That’s all! I’m not a programmer but for heaven’s sakes…it used to be easy!!! This is really aggravating now the way it is.
April 24th, 2009 at 11:19 pm
I’d like to see Y! Personals somehow merged into profiles. I know the last discussion a lot of people mentioned they don’t want to be available by search but I’m sure there is a happy medium.
April 28th, 2009 at 9:10 am
yahoo personals are fake. there have many law sutes charging them with fraud.
April 25th, 2009 at 12:11 am
Whatever you call it, the idea is pretty simple and straightforward: the recipient of the invitation should see the sender’s profile as a preview of what it would look like had the invitation already been accepted, so that the recipient gets a better understanding of who the sender is and what they’re possibly up to. Guest Pass, Invitation Preview Mode, all valid names…
April 25th, 2009 at 12:15 am
yeah thats kewl but i really want to know if i can decorate my profile cuz if i cant thats kinda boring!!!
April 25th, 2009 at 12:32 am
Yawn…what we would really like to see something innovative…a reason to use the new profile system. We want a reliable blogging platform. I’m with Steven and Tommy…what in the world is Yahoo doing? Even Mash was better that this steaming pile of goo that you call a profile system…there is just no point to it. With 360, at least we had something fun and useful.
April 25th, 2009 at 7:34 am
i think that it’s a good thing to do
April 25th, 2009 at 7:48 am
Oops my links got truncated. Here is the comment again with full links:
Okay, so I’ve read all the blog entries and help topics about getting a picture instead of a grey smiley-face on Yahoo Answers. I have a picture on BOTH Yahoo 360 AND my Yahoo Profile (links below). Here is a screenshot of the place in Yahoo Answers where I ought to be able to add my picture:
http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/904679/Answers.png
Here is my Yahoo Profile … complete with picture:
http://profiles.yahoo.com/rtobyr
Here’s a screenshot of my Yahoo 360 account:
http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/904679/360.png
Here is my Yahoo 360 … sometimes I can see the picture on this page & sometimes I can’t (weird):
http://360.yahoo.com/rtobyr
My 360 page nor my Profile are NOT hidden. I have all settings set to the maximum public configuration is. I e-mailed y_answrs_team@yahoo.com (they told me to post my problem here and “Melissa” will help me). I have filled out various customer service and help forms throughout Yahoo’s site. I have posted in the Yahoo Answers forum, as well as asked the question on Yahoo Answers itself. Still nothing works to get my picture on Yahoo Answers.
So why is the option to have a picture disabled (”greyed out”)? And why is it wanting a 360 picture when pictures are now supposed to come from my Yahoo Profile? And why does my 360 picture sometimes appear, and sometimes not?
April 28th, 2009 at 11:55 am
Hi Toby,
here’s the link: http://help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/profiles/general.html
This sounds like a bug– I’m forwarding your comment on to the engineers/team here and I’ll see if I can’t get a solution for you. Also, as a general rule, for profiles help, you should contact profiles customer care
-Melissa
April 30th, 2009 at 1:25 pm
I did fill out that form first. After getting the autogenerated response, I got a reply (paraphrasing): “Thanks for your comments. We value your input.” No help there.
May 1st, 2009 at 11:31 pm
Toby,
Please forward your customer care email (it should contain a ticket code starting with the letter K) to yahooprofiles [at] yahoo [dash] inc [dot] com so I can look into your specific case/case number. Thanks.
-Melissa
April 25th, 2009 at 2:51 pm
Wenn geht es mal endlich mal weiter mit der Seite(meine profiele) oder bleibt die Seite so weiß mm Melissa? was wird mit der 360 werden?warum dauert das alles so lange hier,und noch eine frage warum immer blos alles in Englisch,hier bei yahoo sind tausende von Usern auch aus Deutschland,legt ihr keinen wert auf uns?Mario
April 28th, 2009 at 11:58 am
Hi Mario,
Unfortunately, I only speak English, which is why the blog is in English. We’re aware that there’s a need for a blog in other countries and languages, however at this time this is not currently available. If you need support, all Customer Care agents are well versed in the same information, knowledge and content contained here, back in Germany.
Help pages: http://help.yahoo.com/l/de/yahoo/profiles/index.html
Sorry!
-Melissa
April 25th, 2009 at 6:48 pm
I think it stuiped to get a guess pass I agree with the one’s that say they want to know about the person before you accept them as a friend.!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! you should be able to see and read about the person before you added them.it called common sence.!!!!!!!!!!!!
April 25th, 2009 at 7:29 pm
hi i think yall are doing a good job with the new profiles i like to be able to do member search for location and like to see it filled with the old profiles too im all for the guess pass thingy yall all are doing a great job plz keep it up i been a member of yahoo for 20 years thanks for you
April 25th, 2009 at 7:47 pm
I would prefer being able to read up on my connections before I accept them. With all the craziness going on at websites, you can never be too careful
April 26th, 2009 at 6:35 am
I like the Guest Pass idea. I wish you would add a way to block all updates from showing up on my friends list. I don’t care to see updates next to my friends ID’s. I know this could be solved if they would turn off updates. I’m talking about Yahoo! Messenger not the profile page.
I wonder why Yahoo! keeps Yahoo! 360? Why not just combine the blogging and photostream into these new profiles.
April 26th, 2009 at 7:14 pm
I wonder when Yapoo! is going to finally realize they made a big mistake and revert back to the old system, with the member directory, and fix the problem with chat, then they can spend a little money on advertising to let people know they’ve went back and fixed what they screwed up and they should start getting users back again, so they can then get money from companies wanting their ads displayed on their services, any companies paying for ads up in the chat now are just as idiotic as the morons ones running Yapoo!.
April 26th, 2009 at 7:34 pm
I think a pass or a formal request for more info, adding some of your profile. Then you could take it from there. I have heard too many bad things about people just jumping in and starting something they cannot handle. There are some weirdos out there, I have met a few. Keep it private as long as possible. That is my advice and I am sticking to it.
April 26th, 2009 at 7:37 pm
If someone were to take a vehicle in to a mechanic to get a tune-up, and when they went to pick it up, and it no longer ran, would you get mad? But then the mechanic said he was just trying to fix it even though you told him nothing was wrong with it to start with, but can’t remember what he did to get it broken or cannot get it back to the way it was before, would you still be upset? What if to make it up to you the mechanic said wait a minute though, check it out I added in a new cd player that also plays mp3s, and added a lot of other cool features including a gps system, would you still be upset? If the mechanic said he is thinking of ways of getting it back running again but in the mean time enjoy the cd player, how much of the bs are you going to take from him?
April 27th, 2009 at 10:26 am
I JUST WANT TO SEE A FREE CHAT ROOM PUT BACK. CHAT ROOMS ARE SUPER AND A GREAT WAY TO MEET OTHERS. MSN USED TO HAVE FREE ONES, BUT NOW CHARGE EVEN IF YOU ARE PAYING TO USE MSN. ONE REASON I CHANGED TO YAHOO
April 27th, 2009 at 4:56 pm
hey umm i don’t think it’s a good idea to show anyone’s profile because
of everyone being able to see everyone else’s profiles ppl are being murdered like the craigslist lady and ppl off of myspace it’s just not
safe at all….i’m srry but it’s not!
April 27th, 2009 at 5:00 pm
hey i think that u should not be able to view a profile unless your invited because then predators have a less chance of kidnapping or worse to young teens…
we need to start using are heads and be smart for all the young ones
out there come on ppl letting “joe” view your profile isn’t
the smatest idea!
srry if i stepped on anyones toes but use ur heads!
April 30th, 2009 at 9:55 pm
We do NOT have to let anybody see our profiles! What are you talking about? You can HIDE IT!
May 8th, 2009 at 9:59 pm
Use your head. If you don’t want anyone to see your profile, Don’t post it. That’s a no-brainer!
May 17th, 2009 at 11:04 am
Better yet? Don’t put any personal (and i do mean personal) information on your profile…no picture of yourself, where you live…all that stuff? LEAVE IT OFF!
Doesn’t take a genius to figure that out.
April 28th, 2009 at 9:12 am
Sounds great!
April 28th, 2009 at 5:38 pm
It would be nice if you could get the profiles working. My girlfriend has been trying to make her profile public, but it stays private. When she asks questions, she gets stupid canned responses. How long is Yahoo going to take to beta test this product? Opps, my bad, this is not a Beta test. The profiles were forced on everyone before it was beta tested.
April 29th, 2009 at 9:40 am
Hi i remember the days with yahoo when anyone tried to contact you via msn or email all you had to do is click on there profile to see who the person is you can deside before giving them that first step in your space whether you want to or not talk to them and what about people you already have as friends do you have to go over your friends list to reinvite them again to connect to see there profile??
April 30th, 2009 at 9:53 pm
yeah! ?? I’m confused….You don’t have to re-invite your friends. But it’s confusing when I’m on IM when I play a game with somebody on my secondary ID and then we connect and they see my original ID. I want the old way back but I cannot EXPLAIN IT!!! ravin lunatic
May 1st, 2009 at 11:40 pm
Cindy,
If you look back at the archives of this blog, back to when profiles launched (October) you’ll see that under the new profiles service, users have one profile for all of their aliases (or secondary, tertiary, etc. IDs). This means that when a user clicks on your secondary ID they’re taken to your main profile (if you have them linked). There is no longer an option to have a full profile for each ID.
If you don’t want people to see your main profile when they click on your secondary ID and would rather they see nothing, you can change these settings by going here: http://profiles.yahoo.com/settings/peoplesearch and deselecting the box next to your secondary ID and hitting save. Doing this will compel users to see a blank profile instead of seeing your main profile.
-Melissa
May 2nd, 2009 at 2:06 pm
You see Cindy, they COULD give you back the old functionality of having alias profiles, they just refuse to do it. They would rather have you create a second or third account and then you have to manage those extra accounts.
I’m still waiting to hear an explanation of why they wouldn’t reimplement profile aliases rather than force their customers to go through the extra trouble of having to log-in and out of different accounts to simulate the old functionality.
The best excuse I’ve heard is that by forcing people to use extra accounts, Yahoo can inflate and exaggerate their number of users when dealing with advertisers.
Come on Melissa, tell us why we have to create extra accounts and go through the trouble of having to manage those accounts, when you could easily reimplement your old functionality. You can’t say that it’s impossible, because that would be a lie.
May 20th, 2009 at 9:39 am
Everyone notice that Melissa never replied to my post above? You see, there’s nothing to be said. They CAN re-implement aliases, they just refuse to.
Come on, tell us why you won’t do it. The only real reason not to do it is so that you can over-inflate your user numbers to advertisers. There is no other explanation.
May 22nd, 2009 at 9:49 am
No, Bruiser, it’s actually because in the past I’ve repeatedly addressed these exact same questions on aliases, and have told you that they’re not returning.
It’s a policy decision that has been made and at this time, is not changing. I understand that you’re not happy with this decision, and you’re also convinced that it’s part of Yahoo’s grander plan to “over-inflate user numbers to advertisers” — which is absolutely NOT the case.
While I also understand that you are not a fan of profiles, I can assure you that they’re here to stay– the old version of profiles will not be returning, and instead, we’ll continue to evolve, innovate, and add new features and services. I also understand that this process has been incredibly slow from a user perspective, but as you can see we’ve been gradually implementing profiles across the network– with literally millions upon millions of users, we need to ensure that as things are rolled out, they’re done in the best interest of our users. (I’m certain you’ll disagree with that statement, but that’s okay– that’s what this forum is for– an open dialogue with Yahoo!).
So, that’s why I didn’t address your comment sooner, and, why I won’t address the issue of aliases again– it’s because it’s a policy decision that has already been made.
-Melissa
May 25th, 2009 at 5:35 am
With all due respect Melissa, making such statements is only hurting Yahoo!’s position on the matter and confirming what many users have come to believe: That Yahoo! doesn’t really care for their customers’ wants and needs. I know you’re only a messenger in all of this… the middle-man(or middle-woman to be more accurate) between Yahoo! and its customers. However, it’s become abundently clear that there’s something going wrong in the company, be it that you’re not accurately relaying the demands of customers to those responsible for this, or their just not giving two craps about what we want… But needless to say that whatever’s going wrong needs to be fixed.
I myself remain using Yahoo!’s profile both out of loyalty and the fact that many friends of mine still use it, holding out for hope that someone in your company will get their act together and fix this terrible mess. If the geniuses behind this new profile system are really that determined to keep these god-aweful abominates in place of our long-lost profile system(Which reminding you and your company that we really liked and did not like to see being wiped out), then at least allow us to make profiles for our secondary aliases attached to each I.D. After all, there are many of us who don’t want them leading back to our main profiles, but we don’t want them to remain blank either. Remind the egg-heads responsible for this new system of a little thing call “compromise”… They robbed us of a simple profile system that worked and was well-liked without so much as a warning… The very least they can do is make it so we can make profiles for the secondary SNs attached to our main I.D.s… Prove that they’re keeping half an ear open to the demands of their customers.
April 29th, 2009 at 9:38 pm
Melissa:
I just signed up on MyBlogLog. I’m pretty confused now…I thought that is what Y! Profiles was trying to achieve.
Could you help explain please?
Mike
April 30th, 2009 at 4:08 am
I am of the view that it should be mix of orkut and face book. means part of profile ( professional ) should be visible b4 making connection and personal part of profile should be shown after approval of connection/ friedship.
all the best
deepak
April 30th, 2009 at 8:38 am
i prefered the old profile style. I like to read the profile of people trying to be my friend before i add them
this one has nothing but a name
April 30th, 2009 at 9:56 pm
that’s because they have it private.. see?
June 15th, 2009 at 1:39 pm
With all of this mess from new features and crap of yahoo………….I will lost my very special friend because i do not want to chat anymore to him ….well seems he lie too much to me as I see on his messenger he is connected to ( a certain name of a woman ) but then he said he has no idea how it happen that he is connected and he keep saying he do not even know who this woman is that’s been connected to him …:(…so who will i believe now?
June 21st, 2009 at 4:18 am
I have several people that my profile says I am connected to,
and yet I have never even sent them a reply let alone talked to
them. I am giving it a chance though.
April 30th, 2009 at 9:49 pm
OOOOO I think that is a very good idea. But I have a question I can’t get answered! SOMEBODY HELPPPPPP MEEEEEE! pleeze.. I used to be able to go into games with my secondary id as the default, but can’t now. What happened? I love yahoo.. ALL 4 of YOU! lol
May 1st, 2009 at 7:55 pm
HI, I removed the connection from my conncetions.But it still shows in others messenger list as i am connected to that connection.why is it so?
May 2nd, 2009 at 5:33 am
Right, that’s OK for me.
May 2nd, 2009 at 4:31 pm
if those of you that are complaining about the layout or lack thereof that yahoo has, then delete your profiles already and go somewhere else – nobody is forcing you to stay here.
May 3rd, 2009 at 9:16 pm
amen!!!!!!!!!
May 20th, 2009 at 9:42 am
I practically have. I no longer use my profile, and I’m down to using only my yahoo mail account. I don’t even use the My Yahoo home page any longer.
The changes suck, and I had even gotten to the point where I was dropping everything and migrating to a gmail account, but decided I could continue to use Yahoo’s classic mail. When they drop that, and force the “Open and Social” changes on YMail, I’m definitely gone for good.
May 3rd, 2009 at 5:57 pm
That’s a great idea.
Although if I may add a few other suggestions for Profiles. I’d like to have the ability to post blogs and to be able to move my existing 360 blogs to the Profile. And the ability to be able to customise the way our Profile page looks by using different backgrounds, colour schemes and layouts would make the Profile page much more friendly. As it is, there is nothing to make me want to use Profiles instead of my 360. But the potential is there to make it much better than 360 ever was.
May 4th, 2009 at 1:54 pm
Why can’t Y!Profile fetch the updates from my blog at http://oneschi.blogspot.com ???
May 4th, 2009 at 4:33 pm
I was happy to be able to easily refer to a friend’s profile. Now it is almost impossible. Like the old system better and my friends seem to agree.
May 5th, 2009 at 7:36 am
Just allow a member to make whatever profile information of his public and searchable that he wants, and bring back the member search to find members by the public, searchable information.
May 5th, 2009 at 8:12 am
Yes this a noble idea to help human relations in a healthy way. God bless this idea from Melissa and others.John Rafic.
May 5th, 2009 at 8:39 am
OMG a guest pass would be fantastic………..so many times i want to take a peek view and i cant……….i realize people want privacy……but then………this would be fantastic……..whats so private on my profile here…….nothing……i dont put in very personal info…….once i know a person……and feel comfortable……..i do share…….people need to separate internet from trusted friends……..until they can truly prove themselves…….keep up the good work………yahoo is a survivor………..
May 5th, 2009 at 8:59 am
I like the classic yahoo better than this beta version. I mean beta has more features and attractive to the eyes but what I don’t like is when I chat the message somebody is sending to me is shown at the bottom right which means that when somebody is doing something in my laptop and somebody message me, that person can see m incoming messages. Unlike the classic one where nobody can see you incoming messages. Now even the person standing at your back can share your messages. Is there a way to download the classic version? how?
May 5th, 2009 at 10:45 am
you guys need to allow category selection to the update stream.
in your contacts you can make so many different categories.
yet when you go to your updates
http://profiles.yahoo.com/updates/
all connections are presented in your update stream. It doesn’t seem like it would take much work to allow users the ability to generate update streams for any category they have.
it would allow categories for games, yahoo answers, y360 even:), yahoo video, etc.
you see the people who go to different services but as your connections grow, the multiitude of updates becomes a huge river that doesn’t allow you to see all you need to see.
you have to allow all contact categories to have an update stream.
May 5th, 2009 at 10:52 am
Dear Yahoo,
One day you might wander over here and read this letter…or maybe not. Truth be known and just like you, I don’t care.
Your inability to fix this Godforsaken piece of crap is a mystery to me. You have the resources, you have the technical power, yet you have decided to let everything fall by the wayside so you can concentrate on your “new and improved” profile features. The truly sad part of it all is that your subscribers are screaming from the rooftops, “We don’t like the new profiles,” and “We want 360 fixed so we can stay here.” You, Yahoo, in true horrible Yahoo fashion, choose to ignore us.
I wish there was a way to let others outside of 360 know exactly what you are doing to your faithful followers. I wish someone had a contact with the media in Sunnyvale, CA, where you reside, and that someone would run a story for the public about Yahoo and your terrible technical support team, as well as Yahoo having the worst customer service in the world.
Shame on you, Yahoo. You screwed your stockholders when you didn’t sell to Microsoft. You have screwed your Messenger subscribers by forcing them to use a profile system they don’t want. Now you are screwing all 360 members by not fixing problems. You deserve to go out of business.
So, Yahoo, from my point of view, you can take your censorship and your inability to fix technical problems and your lack of true understanding about what your subscribers really want and you can stick it up your sanctimonious hard drive.
Catherine
May 5, 2009
360 Protest Day
May 5th, 2009 at 2:48 pm
‘as well as Yahoo having the worst customer service in the world’
I have to agree with this comment.
It is impossible to get a clear answer to any question from Yahoo Customer Care all you get are copy and paste replies that often have nothing at all to do with the question or complaint you have written to them with. That is of course if you get any reply at all.
Why ask people using the games rooms to report abuse to Customer Care if you are not prepared to either reply to that complaint or do anything about the people that abuse?
As for the ‘connections’ on my profile. I do not want this facility and I would really like some feature that I can set to automatically ignore them becuse I am sick and tired of having to do so manually everytime I log on.
May 5th, 2009 at 10:56 pm
Wow! I have never read any of these comments. I think I would listen though. Customer Service is very important to me. We have a Motorcycle Repair business, I have had my own business and worked for other business owners and my family were business owners, believe Customer Service is #1. I would fix things or your business will fall by the way side.
May 6th, 2009 at 1:17 am
I like the idea of being able to look at someone’s profile and being able to read about them before i decide to accept them or not. I think it is only fair otherwise you do not know what you are getting yourself into. If someone wants to read mine all they have to do is ask because mine is set to private If someone has their profile set to private and wants me to add them i usually turn them down or send them a message asking for more information.
May 6th, 2009 at 8:34 am
it would be nice if you allowed people to be able to join dplicate contacts manually. Sometimes, the duplicate search fails to do so.
May 6th, 2009 at 2:40 pm
where is the 360 page?
I went to yahoo.com and it is no longer listed
May 6th, 2009 at 3:25 pm
Sounds like an excellent idea, and something I could work with.
May 7th, 2009 at 12:31 am
I used to do computer programming in the 80’s. One wrong letter or number or comma and the whole program would crash. I wonder how many people here spewing their venom ever tried programming themselves?
There’s going to be bugs, people. And it also looks like you’ve forgotten the proverb “All good things come to those who wait”. Okay, fine. So we wait… especially since we’re not paying a single dime for anything here. It’s FREE! Comprende?
I’m just as frustrated as some of you when it comes to 360 and Profiles. I’m real tired of 360 creaking along and my friends not being able to get messages or comments to me. If you people don’t like it, then pack up your figurative bags and leave. And just try to find another web portal/social network that works well. MySpace, Facebook, Multiply, they’re no better, and in many ways are worse.
Honestly, some people are just spoiled rotten and expect everything to be perfect every day. That’s not how life works.
May 7th, 2009 at 3:55 am
Another applicable proverb is “All good things come to an end.” Nobody claims the old system was perfect but it was better than what we have now. THAT’S what’s so galling about this “open and social” nonsense: something that worked well enough, with features users were content with, has been replaced by something PONDEROUS and unmanageable, with features only social butterflies care about.
NOW they ask our opinions, when the time to do that was BEFORE implementing this turkey.
Ponderous.
May 7th, 2009 at 9:20 pm
mal_igned,
I understand your lament but some people like profiles. I have to admit, my 360 is working pretty good actually. Maybe you need to go to your 360 and try it out.
but morre than that,I can not say that profiles has not helped me communicate better with my other members of yahoo. I am actually communicating with other folk around yahoo sports, and dicussing things around answers.
Profiles is designed to be a social gateway and if you let it, and give yahoo time to integrate more things, it will be for you and yours.
lastly, customer input is never late. be proactive, get people to contact customer service around the same idea. collective voices.
May 7th, 2009 at 9:07 am
Cassandra,
The real issue here is that most people didn’t want profiles changed, but Yahoo decided to force these changes anyway. There was already an existing product, 360, which could have taken the resources poured into profiles, had bugs fixed, and capabilities expanded to accomplish what they were trying to do.
The result is angry customers, and wasted return on investment in this “Open and Social” experiment, which are all symptoms of why Yahoo is going down the drain.
May 7th, 2009 at 9:24 pm
Yahoo had to make profiles. Lets be honest bruiser, yahoo has a lot of different services and those services had no juncture. Yahoo profiles is that juncture. I agree they made changes to profiles impromptu, and that is the way yahoo does things all to often, but you have to realize that the company itself is being changed as we speak. I imagine in a years time , yahoo will seem like a different company.
But, the old profiles, while it has a great alias feature did not allow for the communication of all of yahoo’s services like they wanted. And remember, though yahoo has not been on time with everything, they promised a universal profile, we have it.they promised to get to 360, they have not yet integrated 360 fully into profiles but have at least got it running again.
May 14th, 2009 at 9:32 am
How about, Profiles could have continued to be a side service, and the focus could have been on My Yahoo? Seems like the natural landing spot and focal point for everything.
They did not need to make profiles the juncture of all their services, as you seem to think.
If anything, they could have built on the existing profiles, adding features which could have included switches to turn them on and off for each user, thus keeping their existing profiles in place and expanding it for those people who wanted more from it.
As for them promising a universal profile, that’s the problem, they promised all of these sweeping changes to profiles, and the majority of users don’t seem to want the changes.
Why would they expend the resources for something that people don’t want? Where’s the surveys and focus groups?
If anything, they should have contracted their focus back in on search, email, and the My Yahoo portal, working on a cleaner, tighter integration for those services, and laying a framework on tying in the other services.
But, again, it’s these kinds of choices they are making which are sinking the company.
May 14th, 2009 at 9:35 am
I’m guessing that the lack of communication now means that there’s more changes in the works. Possibly the result of so many people unhappy with the changes, along with the number of users who aren’t even interested in using Yahoo as a social networking site.
Too much misdirected resources.
May 17th, 2009 at 8:26 pm
Hi Bruiser,
Lack of communication? No new posts, but still here, still reading. No new features to talk about right now (as you all are familiar with the current capabilities), so there’s no sense in posting about the same thing over and over again.
-Melissa
May 20th, 2009 at 9:46 am
Can’t post what the team is working on? At least then you can figure out beforehand how you’ll handle the aggravation of the users before it goes live.
May 17th, 2009 at 11:30 am
I am a programmer…and unlike yahoo…I must adhere to deadlines or give my Manager a damn good reason why my part of the project is not completed on time.
Asking us to leave isn’t going to save the sinking ship. Most of us have profiles in MySpace, Facebook..etc..etc…why do we like it here, because it was a better product than all that ‘geewhiz stuff’ geared towards TEENS! So…as a user of this yahoo product..I have a right to complain when something doesn’t work right..or I’m not happy with the UPS product and the lack of giving us more information on WHEN and WHERE they plan to put blogging capabilities.
I am spoiled rotten, I used to have a great product, which has now changed…and if its not changed for the good of all, what’s the point? Hmmm…?
May 7th, 2009 at 12:43 am
It sounds like a wonderful idea. It surely beats “pot luck” with people wanting connections and I have had trouble trying to delete them.
May 7th, 2009 at 5:31 pm
I don’t bother with the new profile system, because it sucks. I want the old profile system back
May 7th, 2009 at 5:34 pm
360 Rocked, the new profile crap doesn’t.
May 8th, 2009 at 4:36 am
I was reading an article about facebook and myspace offering email services. I think yahoo is doing a wise thing with profiles after reading that article. yahoo already has so many different social places, profiles is needed to link them together, though you guys really need to expand some of the update info. people need to see at least 2 sentences.
And, you have to let users be able to see update streams based on a particular set of friends.
i don’t know what happened to messager in yahoo classic.
but, perhaps you should add messenger to profiles. but not necessarily on the personal profile page but this page
http://profiles.yahoo.com/updates/
this page is where you see your friends connections and you have open space on the right side. That space could be used to message connections if they are online which could allow you to see your friends updates and talk to them immediately if they are online on yahoo.
you will need a refresh button, which will allow the user to make the page refresh but also keep the messenger state as was.
May 8th, 2009 at 6:10 am
sounds great to me but barring any other important reason, merging with the personals or similar packages would be fine.
May 8th, 2009 at 10:29 pm
When you discontinued the members search you destroyed 90% of Yahoo as far as I am concerned. I have made friends from all over the world using the search function. You need to pull your head out of that dark place and realize “if it aint broke, don’t fix it”.
May 9th, 2009 at 10:45 am
no pun intended…but the worst thing you could have done was take out the old profiles. how is one supposed to know enough about someone else. sorry,but i think it sucks, and hope you wake-up and make some serious changes for the better.
May 10th, 2009 at 2:32 am
Rubbish. This should be a totally open site.
May 10th, 2009 at 12:54 pm
if 360 is still part of Profiles, when will you address the issues with 360 ie all comments about problems on 360 news , fix so we can use HMTL in our blogs ie Music videos, etc hmtl in our messages to each other ALL GONE NOW current realtime problems ie lost data problems etc etc etc
PLEASE REPLY
May 11th, 2009 at 11:43 am
Hey Melissa, good Idea.
May 11th, 2009 at 1:54 pm
I think it sucks personally.
For all of these positive feedbacks, you’re still doing absolutely nothing to ensure the profiles that are being received on a guest basis are “clean” profiles. i.e. profiles that are not created by hackers, bots, or unfavorable people.
You’ve basically limited the insurance that we as users can go into a profile and “know” who the person is attempting to contact, buddy add, or interact with us, BEFORE we add them, and has done little to nothing to avoid spammers, net crawlers, and info bots. Also, I saw nothing noted that would limit the use of malicious code in profiles.
Just because we’re able to “probe” someone by allowing them a guest pass, does not provide users with the needed information to determine whether or not other users are a threat.
Further more, accepting a guest pass for someone else’s profile just gives one more spam invite we as users must decline should we not care to be hassled with the porn bots, spam bots, email scams, etc etc etc.
Thanks for actually making an effort, but I’m still holding out for better.
May 11th, 2009 at 6:39 pm
I liked to search Yahoo profiles for old frinends especially with members.yahoo.com
May 11th, 2009 at 7:54 pm
Why not so as Flickr? They have different categories for adding people: CONTACTS, FRIENDS, FAMILY.
It’s up to you to select where to place the people you add or those who add you. Depending on where you place them and how you set up your profile/albums, you can select what the people in the different categories can see and not see.
May 11th, 2009 at 8:00 pm
Hmm.. my post didn’t come through here. Trying again:
Why not do as Flickr, where you can select different categories for those you add and add you: Contacts, Friends, Family.
Depending on which category they are in, they can see just the basics of your profile(contacts), most of your profile(friends) and all your profile(family). Or make it so you can manually select what each person you add can see, by a system of boxes to check and uncheck.
May 11th, 2009 at 8:06 pm
…continued: I wrote “Or make it so you can manually select what each person you add can see, by a system of boxes to check and uncheck.”
Better yet: Make it so YOU, the profile owner, decides what each category can see of your profile. Like if you want CONTACTS to be able to read your profile, but not guest book or connections, you simply go to a menu and un-check the boxes for guest book and connections under CONTACTS and so forth.
The more you can customize, the better.
May 12th, 2009 at 12:10 am
I’d like to know why I should care about any of this, Melissa, as I meet people in the chat rooms, or try to, that I want to be interactive in. So, tonight, I try to get in my normal chat room and what do I find, after I take 20 sign-ons to get into the “full” room? It’s full of self-replicating bots, and only two of the normal 30 people who frequent it are there… the rest can’t get in because of the bots (who don’t leave once they’re there… here were their “nicknames” with the number of iterations of each in parenthesis…
kokandkrown 307619, 408236, etc. (5)
shut_up_u_stupid_idiot010203, etc. (17)
sleepy_head_knucker196058, etc. (4)
u_piss_me_off00287, etc. (13)
unknown_intruder30001, etc. (4)
yharo_yharo_yharo497638, etc. (3)
And there’s nowhere, and no way, to adequately report this. All the “report abuse” stuff is automatic, well… nothing, and am I suppose to file 40 separate abuse reports for each duplicate (except for number) bot?
So, honestly, why should I or any of my friends remotely care what new-fangled profile things you do, when we can’t even get together and chat like we’d like to?
(
May 12th, 2009 at 5:53 am
Do what I did. Leave yahoo chat to the bots and spammers, the kids who love to boot and go to using another chat client.
I’m have a great time meeting new people without all that nonsense and aggravation, at the Palace. More and more of my old friends from yahoo are coming here too.
Good luck!
May 22nd, 2009 at 9:38 am
No– you’re not expected to file 40 separate abuse reports– instead, you could lump them into one single report (do that here: http://help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/messenger/messenger9/abuse9.html)
As far as getting together with your friends and chatting like you used to, if you know the people you want to chat with, why not set up a private room (invite to conference) (instructions here: http://help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/messenger/messenger9/othercomms/othercomms-22.html)
Doing this helps you avoid the spammers you’d meet in a chat room, and allows you to chat in a group setting with multiple people at once.
-Melissa
May 12th, 2009 at 5:55 am
Melissa,
I am still peeking in here now and then to find out the fate of 360. Its been an unbelievably long time without some word from the gods that be, as to what, where and how…its going to fit in with these new profiles.
Lacie~
May 12th, 2009 at 8:38 am
Guest pass – I think it’ a gereat Idea. I think it should be shoun on front page something about how this function works
May 13th, 2009 at 4:06 pm
Bad Idea!! How are you able to know enough about “Joe” to give “Joe” a guest pass to YOUR profile? If you can’t view the profile of “Joe”, why would you give “Joe” a “free pass” to view your profile? The whole point is to make connections with people we do not know. The “old” Yahoo Profiles worked very well for the purpose of making NEW connections. Just enough common interests/basic information on the public part of the profile. Yahoo would remain the “Firewall” for safety purposes. Example: You see the profile of “Joe”. He has enough basic information, for public viewing, on his profile to peak your interest. You could could then invite “Joe” to look at your basic information on your profile. If “Joe” is interested in making a connection with you, it can be made through Yahoo.
May 22nd, 2009 at 9:39 am
Rodney,
You’d be able to view the profile of “Joe” as well– it could potentially be a mutual exchange.
-Melissa
May 14th, 2009 at 4:04 pm
I like the old yahoo member directory better. It gave a person the option to browse other members in their area or other locations of interest.
Previewing a profile seems much safer to me .
Thanks
May 15th, 2009 at 5:32 am
I like it as Yahoo USE to be. If a thing works and people enjoy it why change and cause confusion? However, if we MUST, a “guest pass”, whatever THAT will be, is better than the NEW way u have it now.
May 15th, 2009 at 3:02 pm
Hiya, this is more of a problem I have than a comment. I’ve just recently noticed the new yahoo profiles. In the last couple of days whenever I sign into yahoo, the profile comes up with ‘hello marianna’. This profile belongs to a certain ‘ marianna garcia’ in sacramento and I wonder why the profile is on my yahoomail as if its me. Any help on this pls?
May 22nd, 2009 at 9:34 am
Please report this to customer care (under abuse)– you can use this link: http://help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/profiles/abuse.html
-Melissa
May 17th, 2009 at 10:41 am
I prefer the old way of meeting new people…in a chat environment, with the ability to check a person’s profile for similar interests. But then, what do I know huh…:|
May 17th, 2009 at 8:29 pm
Lacie,
You can still do this– but with the new profiles users are able to keep their interests private if they wish. It’s possible that the people you’re meeting in chat rooms either don’t want to share their personal information, or, haven’t set up their profiles yet.
-Melissa
May 18th, 2009 at 9:33 am
Melissa, this seems to be a common theme, people either not showing their information or not setting up their profiles. Think there might not be as much interest in going “Open and Social” as you guys might have though? As many have said so far, do you think it’s possible that you’re wasting resources on something that people don’t want, and that those resources would have been better allocated in places like…oh…360?
You could have left profiles with existing functionality, spent minor resources there adding some new bells and whistles, keeping your existing customers happy. You could have fixed the bugs with 360, created a tighter integration of 360 with My Yahoo, and promoted it heavily as the new part of your “Open and Social” strategy. The 360 users would have been thrilled.
There’s a reason you guys are failing as a company, and it’s things like this. See how easy it would have been to accomplish your new directive and keep the maximum number of customers happy.
May 19th, 2009 at 9:09 am
What they should have done is just used MyBlogLog as the new profile system because already does pretty much what the new profile system just…just better.
A former employee of MyBlogLog told me that the design of 360 was too closed to be integrated with the rest of Yahoo the way they wanted to. They had to start from scratch and Mash was their experiment to be like Facebook. They scrapped Mash and started over with this profile system which is pretty much worthless.
May 20th, 2009 at 9:57 am
Good example. See the point is, they could have done any number of things which wouldn’t have alienated a subsection their subscribers, but would have energized another subsection.
It’s this lack of forethought which is driving this company down the drain. It’s the same thinking which was used to refuse the Microsoft deal.
May 20th, 2009 at 1:32 pm
Here’s a thought. You can keep your Interests Private by NOT MENTIONING THEM.
Besides, we used to have a way to tailor who saw what info about us. It was called ALIAS PROFILES. We’ve not seen any reason given as to why they’re gone, except that they don’t fit The Plan — as if anything about this grand Open and Social scheme was well-thought out.
May 27th, 2009 at 2:03 am
This is a thought not new to the discussion of what the staff at Yahoo! were thinking when they launched the new system… But it is a most certainly a valid arguement. Honestly, my curiousity has been peaked once again and I want to know.
If you’re able to Melissa, ask the people behind all this why exactly they implimented all this when matters like keeping information private or being selective of how people saw us on-line was as simple a matter as what mal_igned said. And if you’re able to, relay their response. I think others aside from myself would really like to know.
May 27th, 2009 at 9:48 am
Janus/all,
I’ve addressed the alias issue before, but I’d be happy to address it again with the only answer I’m able to provide.
At this time full alias profiles are not supported. They are also not curently slated to return.
Full alias profiles (but not aliases altogether) were eliminated as a part of Yahoo’s strategy to be more “Open and Social”– creating full, separate identities does not fit into this plan.
Profiles default to private (before you access them/change your settings), so if you’re concerned about revealing information that wasn’t intended to be public, this wasn’t revealed/won’t be revealed without your permission and you controlling the information.
-Melissa
May 27th, 2009 at 2:01 pm
I suspect you’re not quite getting what we’re saying Melissa. As mal_igned said before my last reply, with the alias profiles you pretty much had exact sort of “open and social” applications your company is aiming for with this new system, only they were easier to tailor and modify to our liking. They allowed us to be as revealing as we liked with select aspects of ourselves as needed. As it is, the general consensus seems to be that Yahoo! members tend to not like revealing everything about themselves, and like having the option to reveal certain ascpects of themselves in certain situations, i.e. chat-rooms and groups.
As it is, people seem to feel the need to hide themselves completely because they no longer have the freedom to be as selective with how they display themselves, hence the need of this “guest pass” nonsense. So that brings up the big question: If the staff at Yahoo! had a system that achieved what they wanted just fine, why destroy it and replace it with something that is not only ineffective, but after 6 months is still hardly stable, let alone fulfilling the purpose it was created for?
In all honesty, it seems like the planning and execution of this “Open and Social” plan was poorly done. Not to mention that if it’s Yahoo! is trying to imitate sites like Facebook, MySpace, ect, it’s coming in so late in the game that most people who want such services are already with one or more of those sites already. And even with things as they are, people will still choose those sites over Yahoo! for such things because the profiles can’t even offer half the features the competing sites have.
I’m almost certain that in the end, the staff responsible for the change in profile systems could have added a few more features(bells and whistles) for a fraction of the resources and without destroying an already working and relatively stable system. That’s all I have to say on this for now…
May 17th, 2009 at 7:07 pm
I think , therefore an informed decision is better than a shot in the dark.
May 17th, 2009 at 10:35 pm
i liked all of bruisers comments. especially how they are trying to boost there member base. or what appears there total number of members. once i heard that it made alot sense to me.
May 18th, 2009 at 11:43 am
Great idea! ‘Twould make many things easier.
May 18th, 2009 at 12:09 pm
Nothing new to report in nearly a month? Yahoo is a worthless site.
May 18th, 2009 at 12:10 pm
Why has there been no update about Yahoo 360 since last October? Why does it just sit there slowly dying? When will someone get off there butt and ether kill it or fix it.
May 20th, 2009 at 10:00 am
It’s going to slowly die. That is unless Carol Bartz has been reading the response to the “Open and Social” experiment, which is slowly failing, and changing course.
May 19th, 2009 at 9:04 am
Got blog?
May 20th, 2009 at 10:02 am
Hey Melissa, how about giving us the percentage of people that have actually set up their profile out of all Yahoo accounts. Then give us the percentage of those profiles that aren’t marked as private.
I need a good laugh.
May 22nd, 2009 at 1:29 pm
what’s going on with 360? I see I can add myspace to my Yahoo apps (that’s funny) 360 no
Will you update 360 news or was that the last post PLEASE REPLY THIS TIME
May 29th, 2009 at 2:34 pm
I’ve been a member of yahoo since 1998 and I’ve seen the transformation of chat rooms, when they first started the camera on messenger and now 360 and I had to get used to the webpage content of 360 but what I had like most about it was not only being able to post blogs but to make my page stand out with backgrounds and many different web designs and they quick comments was a joy, Espeically around football season when we all would go back and fourth cheering on our teams and writing funny things to each other and ganging up on other team members it was truly a joy. I hope the new profile will allow something of that or have a group were we all can come together, we became like a family that is being torn apart! This is why people were going to other websites because its all coming to an end!
May 29th, 2009 at 2:44 pm
I’m going to be honest here, I like direct contact like commenting. I myself and many others already set up facebook pages, Tagg pages, myspace pages, twitter pages, blogger pages etc. Where they can post video’s clips add snapwire instantly comment on another page. So you guys at yahoo profile got some heavy competition and 360 was the #1 site for all of this. This is what the people had love best about 360 over all the other websites until you all decided to take it away, I feel its a bad move. The explorer tool bar itself allows other to hit up other websites, you all had them all beat in the webpage department. the webpage was everyones profile. With our backgrounds to show who we are. I hope who evers ideal it was to come up with this ideal listen to the people! After all its the people who keep your ratings going right?
May 30th, 2009 at 9:08 pm
somoene tell me please that this boring plain page look can be changed. Why would I want it this way? when there are so many other sites available that are more user friendly? And WHERE is the access to my FLICKR account that was so easily accessible from my profile page? this is truly annoying.
May 30th, 2009 at 9:11 pm
This feels worse than when you tried to introduce MASH.. an uppity “Invite Only” site? What’s next?
May 31st, 2009 at 3:11 am
i liked it when you could click on profiles and be able to browes all my ID’s or by name’s, … id like to be able to view a invites profile befor i say yes to the invite……
May 31st, 2009 at 6:00 am
Hi,
I have a problem with my yahoo. The profile in my yahoo shows as other person but with my account. Then all my contact got buzz from my yahoo even I don’t sign in. How to rectify about this problem?
Thanks
June 2nd, 2009 at 1:02 pm
Why do my comments to friends guest books show up on my guest book. This is just plain stupid and a nuisance.
June 6th, 2009 at 5:25 pm
I did the transfer thing and it seemed to work. Now my page won’t even come up. I emailed Yahoo and I’m on my 3rd and last try an asking them to look into it, instead of getting the status quo answer: go to feedback page.
I never thought I’d do Facebok but someone got me signed up, and it looks like I just might stay over there. Very lame Yahoo, very lame.
June 7th, 2009 at 10:15 am
Dean,
Was any of your content marked as mature/adult? If so, this is why you’re unable to access your profile.
Please feel free to email me with the details: yahooprofiles [at] yahoo-inc [dot] com
-Melissa
June 7th, 2009 at 9:05 am
I moved my 360 blog to profile. Now every time I try to connect with someone, all I get is an error message..”unable to process at this time error 502″ . Anyone else with same problem?
June 7th, 2009 at 10:20 am
I’ve forwarded your issue to an agent.
-Melissa
June 7th, 2009 at 10:51 pm
I need help.I changed my profile name and went to post on Y/A suggestion board.On posting i 999′d.My name in original post and subsequent comments no longer match.On changing names back 999 went away but now my name keeps changing on board.on every visit to thread it reverses.
thread on problem: http://suggestions.yahoo.com/detail/?prop=answers&fid=147930
thread where name change alternating to everyone gets discussed: http://suggestions.yahoo.com/detail/?prop=answers&fid=146473
thanks mellissa
June 8th, 2009 at 10:06 am
the new yahoo profile has only 2 problems for me. 1. no screen names. no screen names make it inpossible for me to contact other women. 2. no I M feature.
June 11th, 2009 at 10:13 am
I’m just wondering, why can’t i get the new smarter inbox feature. See, I’ve already created a profile and invited friends to connect, and those things are enough to get that new feature according to : http://overview.mail.yahoo.com/whatsnew/smarterinbox
However, no changes take into effect after doing such.
any help, please…
June 12th, 2009 at 9:58 am
Mae,
This feature is only available in All-New Mail, and I’m guessing you’re using classic.
If you are using All-New Mail and are still seeing an issue, please file a bug/report the issue to the Mail team’s CC — http://help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/mail/classic/connected_mail.html
-Melissa
June 21st, 2009 at 5:04 am
I feel it is simply and completely new, and that is the problem.
I think that as soon as yahoo works out all the kinks it might
be all right. Besides, who knows yahoo as a company could
surprise us and make it end up being the best thing after all.
July 3rd, 2009 at 2:47 am
i agree with this. yahoo should take it seriously, think about it.
August 7th, 2009 at 2:23 pm
Ok you shifted us to this profile thing now mine is gone, can you tell me why?
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