I actually started writing this post back last week, but abandoned it for lack of in-depth information as to whether we were seeing something new or something abandoned that had accidentally resurfaced. However, after attending today’s mysecondlife.com User Group meeting, I’m now more confident in going to press – even if the news is now rather old!

Essentially, in the next few weeks our web profiles will be turning a lot more “social” in their look, feel and capabilities. With the “new” Profiles, people will be able to:

• Link more closely to any other social networking identities they may have & which they wish to connect to their SL identity (e.g. Twitter, Plurk, Facebook, etc.)
• Allow people to comment on their own and other profiles (subject to permissions being set) in a Twitter-like manner
• Manage their Friends and Group lists through the web profile as well as in-world
• Upload snapshots directly to their web profile.

Some of these changes can already be seen on my-demo.secondlife.com, although the more recent code updates appear to be only available if you actually physically log-in to the Beta grid and use the new profiles through the in-viewer browser.

Several of the new features look to be well-considered and have been much-requested: the ability to manage Friends lists for example. Others are likely to prove more questionable among the masses – and indeed are already generating concerns.

Feed option

The Feed option is most analogous to Twitter in many respects. Essentially it allows those to whom you give permission (defined as a Friends only, or anyone in SL or anyone coming across your profile while browsing the web) to leave a comment on your profile. Replies to comments can also be made – as shown in the example above.

This has already given rise to concerns about spammers abusing the system and people finding their feeds filled up with ads for tat, tosh and trinkets. However, this can be mitigated against by adjusting the privacy settings for the Feed option (setting it to just “Friends” – which really, it should be by default).

Another concern with the Feed is that if it is used via the in-viewer browser and Viewer 2 / a V2 TPV, your in-world location is automatically appended to the message you send out. This is something that did not prove to be popular among those attending the my.secondlife.com user group meeting today, doubly so when it became apparent that the option to transmit your location is opt-out, rather than opt-in, and that there is currently no blanket opt-out option: you must do so message by message. However, Fredrik and Teddy Linden, attending the meeting on LL’s behalf, appeared to take concerns about the opt-out rather than opt-in situation on-board, with Fredrik commenting:

[11:41] Frederico (fredrik.linden): again, we want to help people socialize and stay up to date with what’s happening in Second Life. Location does that, and we want to push it. we’ll be sure to tweak the opt in/out before we go live to agni

Given that people will be able to comment on your profile, the new system includes options to notify you when someone does so – you can elect to be notified in-world and/or via e-mail and these options can also be set should someone comment after you or comments on a message you leave on another person’s profile.

Faster, smaller, neater

A repeated complaint about the web profiles, and I’m as responsible as anyone here, is that they a) take far too much time to load when using the in-world browser (4 seconds on average for me – others have reported up to 10 seconds on busy regions) and b) they take up far too much screen real estate. Again, LL appear to be listening to these concerns, with both Teddy and Fredrik giving assurances that the “new” profiles will be faster on loading and “more integrated” into the Viewer.

The new profiles are not ready for prime-time as yet: the data used at my-demo.secondlife.com is from the Beta grid, and thus is very stale for many users (other than those who routinely spend a good deal of time logged-in to it). More work is required on various aspects of the new look – and both Fredrik and Teddy seemed keen to take on board as much feedback from the UG meeting as they could – presumably so that it could be fed-in to the development process in the lead-up to the release some time in the next few weeks.

Right now it is unclear (at least to me) as to which page / tab will be the item others see when looking at your profile; “Home” would appear to be the obvious choice, but given this is essentially a blank page with a feed box in it, it would appear somewhat redundant. The ABOUT tab appears more informative – and it is actually hard to understand why this isn’t, by default, the “home” page for a profile.

Overall, the new-look profiles offer much of promise and provide a set of potentially useful social networking options. A part of me wonders as to how effectively they will be used, however – those that want to extend some of their SL contacts and activities into the “pure” social networking space are probably already at home with the likes of Plurk and Twitter, and may not be overly attracted to the new profiles unless deeper integration with their preferred communications medium are available, or all their existing contacts can be persuaded to swap over or get involved. For many SL users however, there is a risk that these additional bits and pieces will be at best ignored, as they don’t have any place in their in-world lives, or at worst seen as a complete distraction.

For my part, I do find it hard to believe that things like the Feed will do much to pull me away from Twitter (and to a lesser extent, as I don’t use it so much, Plurk) – it simply isn’t as convenient a tool to use. However, I do like other aspects of the new profiles; overall the new tabbed approach is a lot cleaner and easier to grasp. I also look forward to seeing just how LL tweak the profiles for “better integration” with the Viewer as a whole.

I’m also curious as to how the Firestorm team will respond to these changes – if at all. Currently, Firestorm takes profile information and displays it in a Viewer 1-style window within the browser. This actually works a lot better than the in-browser approach – but will it be able to display all the new widgets and options, or will Jessica and the team opt to leave that to using web profiles through the in-viewer browser.

Tateru Nino posts on a privacy issues surrounding SL web Profiles – or more particularly, the “old” profile API utilised by 1.x Viewers and the likes of Firestorm.

Although there is an issue here, I’m not entirely with her on her take on the situation, or in the options she provides as potential solutions.

Essentially, the problem lies in the fact that people seem to be under the impression that setting the privacy options on a web Profile via my.secondlife.com will “hide” the selected parts of the Profile from being viewed in-world. For example: if Groups to be viewed by Friends in my.secondlife.com, people take it to mean only Friends can view the Groups information when viewing the Profile in-world.

While this is the case for those people using the official Viewer 2, it is not true for anyone using 1.x-based Viewers or some TPVs based on Viewer 2. For these people, your entire Profile remains fully visible, regardless of the Privacy settings active on mt.secondlife.com.

This is because 1.x-based Viewers (and Viewers such as Firestorm) use the “old” 1.x Profile API, which has no privacy settings associated with it, and it simply doesn’t care what has been set via my.secondlife.com.

As such, and while acknowledging the situation, I’m hard-pressed to call it a “privacy” issue in its truest sense; the behaviour exhibited by the API is exactly what it has always been – no more, no less. In that regard, it’s certainly incorrect to describe the resultant situation as a bug with the 1.x Profile API.

Rather than being a matter of “privacy” with regards what is viewable on Profiles in-world, I’d actually suggest that this problem is actually an unfortunate outcome of another poorly worded communique from Linden Lab coupled with taking the “easiest” route to providing a solution.

Let’s put matters in perspective. The privacy settings on my.secondlife.com came about not to limit the viewability of Profiles in-world, but rather to address users’ concerns that my.secondlife.com initially made it far too easy for non-SL users casually browsing the web to see people’s avatar Profiles. Unfortunately, when LL moved to fix the matter (and very clumsily so, in the first pass), Q Linden issued a blog post that unintentionally linked the web aspects of privacy with the in-world viewing of Profiles; something that was possibly exacerbated by the clumsy manner in which “privacy” was first invoked.   As a result, some people have become confused.

Unless LL unequivocally state it is their intention to enable the blocking of certain parts of a person’s Profile from in-world viewing (and there are actually valid arguments for this), then I’d dispute Tateru’s view on how to resolve this matter.

Far from there only being two options open to LL (backport the privacy controls to the 1.x API or to shut down that API entirely), there is actually a third. It’s this: add the necessary clarification to the privacy settings page on my.secondlife.com. It’s around 10-15 minutes work at most. The wording itself is pretty simple:

“Please note: These privacy settings apply to how your profile is seen at my.secondlife.com or by residents using the official Viewer 2. Residents using older Viewers and third-party Viewers may be able to see your full profile in-world, regardless of the settings made here. Please ensure you only supply information you wish to be made “public” within Second Life, and ensure your profile remains within our Community Standards guidelines.”

Q Linden has posted about Viewer 2.5 going live, and in particular brings up the subject of web-based Profiles.

The introduction of web profiles has caused a lot of consternation, not least because of the inclusion of Facebook and Twitter buttons. For myself, I actually rather like the approach in general: being able to edit my Profile from the web, rather than having to log-into SL is a useful feature. The moving Profiles to this format reduces asset server loads is also no bad thing (assuming it does).

However, privacy has been a thorny issue for some – and not just because of the aforementioned buttons. Many kicked back against the idea that their Profile, far from being nice and secluded inside Second Life, would now be viewable by anyone on the Web. Protests were written  – Linden Lab read them and listened.

Firstly, they made the Facebook and Twitter buttons optional – but only if you opt not to have your Profile searchable in-world. Not an ideal start, it seemed at the time, but a start.

Now, with Viewer 2.5, Linden Lab have extended the degree of privacy you have with regards to your Web Profile. You can now:

• Opt not to have your Profile displayed on the web at all
• Select whether your Groups and Picks are viewable by “everyone” – the entire Internet and by search engines, or visible only to Second Life Users logged into SL / using the SL website, or only visible to your friends
• Select whether any Classifieds yo may have are searchable / viewable on the web as a whole, or only by Second Life residents.

These are welcome changes, and even the defaults for Groups, Picks and Classifieds are sensible (they are set to Second Life). I’d personally prefer to see the option to have your Profile displayed on the web given precisely the same level of granularity as Groups and Picks, rather than it simply being an “on” or “off” affair – but perhaps that will come in time.

To see your profile and set your defaults, type:

https://my.secondlife.com/First.Last

into the address bar of your browser (where First.Last are your SL first name and last name). Press RETURN and your Profile page will be displayed.

You may have to log-in to the page using the link at the top right, which will take you to the log-in screen. Once you’ve logged in (SL username and password), you’ll be returned to your Profile page, which will now be editable and have a Privacy Settings link in the top right corner (see below).

Click on this link to open the Privacy option page, which is quite straightforward in its use.

Also, if you leave your Profile as viewable on the web, and are concerned about personal information, you can use the EDIT button from your profile page to re-word  / remove references to your real life – all such edits will be reflected back in your in-world Profile as well.

These moves are not perfect, but they are stepping in the right direction, and Linden Lab deserve the credit for adding this functionality to Viewer 2.5.

ADDENDUM – Feb 14th

There are times when one should look before one leaps. I’ve just had time to fiddle with Viewer 2.5, and I have to say two things:

• Profile loading is abhorrent. I’m running a quad-core system with a newly-upgraded graphics card exceeding the recommended specification for SL, with bandwidth wide  open for SL – and the average time for a Profile to be grabbed and loaded is around 5 seconds. Hideous.
• It appears the option to “Hide your profile” from the web means that no-one in-world can view your Profile either. This makes the ability to “hide” your profile about as useful as a chocolate shovel is for moving hot coals.

Far from deserving credit, as I originally stated, someone at LL needs a swift kick up the arse. Not everyone wants their profiles blasted across the interwebs; yet to maintain visibility in-world, that’s precisely what people have to do with Viewer 2.5, and frankly, that’s pathetic.

I sincerely hope there will be a way to correct this idiocy and give people a genuine choice.

And, having updated this post, I’m off to nibble on crow pie…