12/15/08

V3: Your Activity is Your Profile

One of the subtle differences in V3 over the existing site is in how we treat profiles. On the current site, if you click on somebody's user name you get taken to a profile page that shows links to a user's activity, and stuff like "favorite music," "favorite books," etc.

















The problem that I have with this page is that it's stagnant. Folks fill in their profiles once, and then forget about them. It makes for boring reading (with the exception of some of the embed stuff that folks have done to give their profile pages some flavor).

V3 is going to take a slightly different approach. When you click on a user's name, you will get taken directly to that user's activity stream. By using the filters, you'll be able to isolate that member's most recent activity in things like ratings, reviews, quizzes, comments, lists, etc.

























In other words, you are what your activity says you are.

Of course, everyone's old profile format will still be available with things like embedded videos, testimonials, and the like - it's easy to toggle between a member's activity stream and their profile.

6 comments:

  1. Wow, more invasion of privacy. I don't regret leaving rateitall one bit.

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  2. We are definitely moving towards a bit more transparency (as I think, the web is). We're not exposing anything that isn't visible in the current site though - we're just making it easier to see it.

    We do plan on exploring some more granular privacy settings around who is allowed to see what though.

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  3. So would these privacy settings be something kind of like Facebook, where you could have the option of having only members on your trusted list see your profile?

    Of course this could be a little trickier, as if you are friends with someone on facebook, they are friends with you, but just because someone trusts you on RIA doesn't mean you trust them.

    It will be interesting to see how you deal with the privacy issues, more out of curiosity than anything else, as I probably won't change the privacy settings if it is possible. As far as I'm concerned, there isn't anything in my profile that the whole world can't see.

    On an only slightly related note, I can't seem to access my test account on V3 anymore. Do you mind if I just create a new test account so I can poke around some more?

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  4. Twansalem, we were thinking more in terms of settings that allowed you to determine who could see your reviews / lists, like friends, friends of friends, everybody. This is a ways out though.

    As far as the demo site, feel free to create as many accounts as you want. All that data will go away. Also, we haven't pushed too many changes since you last poked around... maybe we can do a push tomorrow so you can see the new stuff (and there's quite a bit).

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  5. This is horrible! Its gonna show crap like me rating porn stars and stuff! Ahh! *runs away*

    ReplyDelete
  6. Numbah, people may even find out that you have a thing for Jessica Alba... the horror!

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