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

After looking through your comments, it’s easy to see that many of you want to be able to search for other members by interests, keywords, and location. Currently, for many users, this information is set to private/”My Connections”, which brings up a question of privacy, and “discoverability.”

Since many of the fields/categories you all want to be able to search by are currently set to private/”My Connections” (and many users opt to keep it private, or viewable only by people they connect with or know), we want to know: How would you feel about coming up in search results for information that isn’t publicly displayed? Is this something you’d want?

For example, if you lived in Sunnyvale, CA and had “shopping,” “sneakers,” and “basketball” entered as interests, but had your “About Me” section set to be viewable only by your connections, you’d still show up in search results for “Sunnyvale, CA,” “shopping,” “sneakers,” and “basketball.” Is this something you’d want (or would at least be “ok” with), or would you feel as though your privacy was violated?

Let us know in the comments section below!

Melissa Daniels
Yahoo! Community Manager

(For those of you looking for the current People Search feature, you can find it here: http://profiles.yahoo.com/people-search/)

UPDATE: To clarify, as it stands there are no options in the current profile that say “private” or “public.” Instead, there is the option of revealing portions of your profile to “Anyone” or “My Connections.” The post has been updated to reflect these distinctions. Additionally, any profile that is set to “hide” would not come up in search results.

We’d love to hear a little bit more about your thoughts on member search, and what specifically you all would like to see, so this week we have two questions:

• How would you like to find other members? (ex: search by interests, name, location, etc.)
• What information would you want to display in the search results? (ex: full name, nickname, picture, location, etc.)

By now, you all know the drill: leave your answers to the questions in the comments section below, and I’ll compile the answers for the team to review.

I’ll do my best to respond to as many questions/comments as possible, but you all have proven to be an enthusiastic bunch  (no, I’m not complaining-it’s fantastic!) so sometimes I’m not able to comment on every comment (sorry), but that doesn’t mean your comments go unread: I DO read every submission.

Thanks in advance for your enthusiasm, your answers, and for working with our teams to create products that you all are as excited to use as we are as excited to create.

Melissa Daniels
Yahoo! Community Manager

UPDATE: Currently there is a Member Search feature integrated into profiles (though it is a little hard to find– http://profiles.yahoo.com/people-search/), which allows you to search for users based on email address, first name, last name, or a combination of first and last.

This week’s question: what are the five (or so) things you definitely need to have, want to have, or would love to see in your profile?

Think about features like blogging, sharing photos from Flickr, commenting on your connections’ statuses, searching for people you know (or don’t know), seeing when people are online, etc. Please be specific–  saying “a good blog” is way less helpful than saying “a blog that allows image integration, formatted text and RSS feeds.”

Leave your list of “must have’s” in the comment section below.  We can’t promise to include items from all of your lists, but would love to see what you consider the most important aspects of your profile on Yahoo-is it privacy, blogging, the ability to connect with others easily, etc.? You tell us!

Thanks!

Melissa Daniels
Yahoo! Community Manager

What types of sites would you like to see more of? (Social Networks (MySpace, Orkut, Facebook); Photo-Sharing (Photobucket); Bookmarking (Digg, etc.); Blogging (WordPress, etc); Shopping Sites; Ticketing; etc)

To see what services are currently available, log into your profile, and then click on the “Updates” tab up at the top (1) , and then click on “Share More” (2).

To share your thoughts on what other third party sites you would want to see on the “Share More” tab, please leave a comment below. Feedback will be shared with the Profiles product team. Thanks!

Melissa Daniels
Yahoo! Community Manager