A mature avatar of today
Yes, that’s right. seven or eight years ago, I had a nice buddy profile. All of the cool kids did – and I was cool, right? I also designed my own buddy icons. Animated GIFs even. Then I added a link to my ’subprofile’. Well, the main reason I did this was to track how many people clicked on the link. I think the buddy profile could even track the screenname, unless, of course, you knew to copy the url and remove that part from the address. In retrospect, however, the buddy profile (or subprofile) was tacky and annoying – a precursor to the aesthetics of MySpace.
The buddy profile itself all started as an offshoot of the AOL Member Profile, which allowed AOL users to list the good stuff – like a/s/l. Friends, quotes, and basic interests could be neatly organized on an AIM window. But, multiple font-faces, font colors, and background colors used to create unique profiles would soon corrupt the innovative idea.
Buddy profiles suffer from several limitations; the two primary limitations are the space limitation (a kilobyte) and the lack of image support. And you know how I love salacious images. Subprofile.com was the first website to overcome the space limitation of the buddy profile. The subprofile, which was opened internally in the AIM Buddy Profile window, allowed users a much greater amount of space to store their information. It also created new features, such as quizzes, countdowns, and random fact generators.
The subprofiles created by Subprofile.com and other sites such as Buddyprofile.com still suffered from a key limitation: the lack of image support. This was apparently overcome in 2002 by XProfile, but by then the subprofile was on the way out. Later, several websites such as Buddy4u took a different approach to the problem by opening in the AIM Today window.
As I write this, Buddy4u is providing 620,617 people with profiles. I love these great features listed on the website:
An unbelievably HUGE profile! (Up to 250 pages long.)
And how about thousands links to your favorite sites!
Add in a guestbook (and BIG… up to 300 entries.)
And don’t forget our very nifty journal feature.
Mix in some great looks with an easy to use interface.
Try out some way cool special effects.
How about a list of up to 1000 friends?
In addition, you can even see who views your profile.
Make your very own poll to test your friends.
NEW! Automatically track and share your away message history.
And how about 32 different categories of quotes?
Oh, and it’s FREE!!
Cute, but only practical for the tween crowd. I still remember the glorious day when you first could add color gradients. Good to see that not much has changed. Still safer for young teens than MySpace too.
In a way, the buddy profile and subprofile were integral in the evolution of social networking. They were (and still remain) necessary steps to branch out from the limiting and relatively private nature of AIM. I’m touched to see that subprofiles still exist as part of the initiation for social networking. Most kids will first have a basic profile, then an enhanced buddy profile, and finally move on to MySpace or Facebook.
The most skilled will eventually use what’s listed at AddThis. New social bookmarking sites are all the rage. Just ask any pro-blogger. And to think that they are related to the buddy profile. Still, human->human interaction will always hold a special place in my heart. It’s far better than digital love.
