All

Over the holiday weekend, I am BETA TESTING a new widget that adds some member privacy options.

On your profile page when logged in, you'll see a new option called 'Make Profile Private'. When you select this, it will make your profile INVISIBLE to all logged in users EXCEPT your friends. They will only see a blank page that tells them that they need to be your friend to see the profile, and an option to friend request you. The default option is for your profile to be totally public.

We'll see what the impact is...once you make your profile private you are likely to get an influx of friend requests ... but essentially its the same as MySpace, where you can make your profile private.

Additionally, for the time being, I've locked down profiles to the general public. If you are not a member, you cannot view profiles. Likewise for full view of submitted photos, you have to be logged in.

I'm testing this to see:

a) Do more people sign up with accounts to be able to view profiles and photos, and if they do are they the 'right' kind of members appropriate to the site. There are lots of people browsing out there without joining.

b) What the impact is to letting folks turn their profiles private, not just to individuals but also to search engines ... since Google and other search engines can find you on your profiles. But they can't if its marked private.

Please post any feedback and comments here.

Again this is ONLY a BETA TEST over the Holiday Weekend. I MAY or MAY NOT remove ALL or SOME of the privacy options explained above.

Thanks for the feedback as usual!

Web Chief