wayne on July 17, 2008
Part of running a blog is ensuring you are presenting yourself the way you want. Many people have differing opinions on what your profile should have depending upon what you are trying to achieve. In this post, I will go over the profile functionality in Blogger.com and try to help you decide for yourself how you want to use it.
Note to new visitors! If you would like to know more about this series or view all available lessons, just follow the appropriate link.
What is your profile?
Your profile tells your users who you are. If you are hiding yourself from the public, then perhaps you will be able to simply put in anything you want to convey. For most blogger's 
though, it's your way of telling your users who you are, and perhaps what you are all about.
The profile is where web site visitors will go to find out more about you, the blogger. So without getting into exactly what you should put in, let's take a look at the parts that make it up.
To the left you'll see a snapshot of the admin screen from my profile on Blogger.com. Clicking Edit Profile will allow you to edit your privacy settings, identity, the photograph or avatar you are using. There are others as well and we'll get to those in a second.
Clicking the "View" link will take you a the page that shows you what it will look like to you visitors. It's always important to view your page after making changes to ensure they look the way you want them to.
Clicking "My Account" will take you to your Google account homepage.
Finally, the Language drop-down list allows you to choose the language that your blog will be written in. Blogger.com will then make the necessary changes to show your blog using the characters of your chosen language. Now, if Google could only translate to a desired language.
Modifying your profile
To begin modifying your profile, click the Edit Profile link to bring up the Edit User Profile page. Here is a breakdown of the items on this page.
Tip: If you open two browsers, one for viewing your About Page, and the other one for editing your profile, things will be much easier. You'll be able to flip back and forth between the two to quickly see your changes. Unless you enjoy doing all the clicking of course. Never a wrong way to do things, but there are inefficient ways also, so why waste your time. Open more browsers if your system can handle it!
Privacy
Share My Profile - When checked, this will show your profile to the public. Otherwise it will show the 'Profile Not Available' screen.
No Profile
My Profile on Blogger
Show My Real Name - As the existing help text says, if you choose to check the Show My Real Name checkbox, the name on your About Me page will be comprised of the first and last names, otherwise it will use the Display Name.
As you can see in my profile image above, I'm showing my real name comprised of my first and last name. It also happens to be my display name as well, so either way it wouldn't matter in my particular case.
Show My Email Address - This one I'm going to say something about. If you don't want spammers to find your email address, leave this unchecked. A link with a mailto: behind it can be harvested easily for use by spammers, so consider that before showing your email address.
Your email address is personal, unless you created an email address specifically for your blog that you don't care if it gets swamped in spam. I didn't see any other way for visitors to reach you as a blogger.com user, like a contact me form for instance, but there are others ways of working around this. If anyone has some ideas on the best way to do this, I'll be looking for them in the near future.
Show my blogs - Clicking the link 'Select blogs to display' will take you to a page where you can select each and every blog you are working on using the Blogger.com platform. Yes, you can have multiple blogs. Let's learn how to get one going first, then I'll cover running multiple blogs.
Identity
Username - You can't change this, so I really don't have anything to say about this one.
Email Address - This is the email address that you want to use with your Blogger.com account. It may already have had a value from an existing Google account, either way, this is the email address that Blogger.com will use to send emails generated from people commenting, as well as the email address that will display in the 'Show My Email Address' email link viewable by the public. You might also receive emails from Blogger.com regarding issues or news about the platform.
Display Name - This is any random text you might want, although organized text is preferable. :) You can choose to not display this text by unselecting the 'Show My Real Name' checkbox as described above.
First Name - I think you have this one handled.
Last Name - This one also doesn't need an introduction. Although I might add that you can choose to display your full name by selecting the 'Show My Real Name' checkbox as described above.
Photograph
Photo URL - This is the photo visitors will see in the Photo area like in the image above. See my kitty? You have two options here. Upload one from your local system, or point to an existing image somewhere on the Internet by providing the URL to the image file. Keep in mind, that taking an image in this manner is not only unethical, but just bad mojo. You would be stealing another entity's bandwidth, and it could possibly by considered breaking the law. Anyone know for sure on that?
Use a photo you know won't get you in trouble.
Audio Clip - I had to play with this to understand it. You'll notice that my profile has been updated to show a new item, Audio Clip (with a little arrow next to it). I went to Free Midi Database and grabbed myself a URL to a clip. When you click the link, the midi file will download and play. It's safe enough, can you name the song I picked?
I couldn't find any information on the types of files supported, but a Midi file will work for sure, and it doesn't hurt to experiment. Just make sure you are getting the expected behavior on the public side.
See the image immediately below for an example of where to find the link to play the midi file.
General
Gender - Sorry, there isn't a third option for the hermaphrodites among us, it's for not specifying your gender. I trust this is self-explanatory otherwise.
Birthday - Ok, this is your chance to tell the whole world you're 25. This affects the Age value on the profile.
Homepage URL - This is an external web site that you wish to reference. I have referenced my blog here at www.waynejohn.com, and you can see the link in the "Contact" image above. It's the "My Web Page" link in the image.
Wishlist URL - Clicking the 'Create a wishlist' link will take you to Google's Shopping List application. You will need to create a 'shopping list' in this application, and explaining that is outside the scope of this post. Go ahead and give it a shot if you have time. To see the results of what I put together real quick, click the Wishlist link you see at the bottom of the stats image immediately above.
IM Username - If you want your visitors to be able to send you an instant message, enter your instant messenger name of any of the services you find in the drop-down list that you might have. Personally, I wouldn't put anything myself. In fact, I think the name I used will go to my Dad. Let's see what happens with that... *evil grin*
Location
City/Town - The image immediately above will show you where this value is.
Region/State - The image immediately above will show you where this value is.
Country - The image immediately above will show you where this value is.
Work
Industry - If you want to share, select an item from the drop-down list.
Occupation - Type in something fancy, or factual. Not mush else to really say here.
Extended Info
The extended information items are pretty straight-forward. Just think MySpace profiles, and you'll do just fine. I'll only speak to one of these, and that is the random question.
Some of the other items require that you make a list of items by separating each entry or item with a comma. They are going to make a list of items, each will be made a link.
The results of your comma-delimited list will be links that will take you to a search of all other users on the Blogger network, an easy way to find those with the same values (and I don't mean moral values...). Your visitors will be interested in knowing what you are into.
Random Question - The random question will do just that, give you a random question to respond to. By checking the 'Give me a new question' checkbox and hitting the save button, you will be given a new question.
The new question will be found right under the Random Question label. I thought this was a fun and easy way to provide a quick little randomness to an About page.
Save It Often
And finally, there is a 'Save Profile' button where all these wonderful changes you just made, can be viewable by your visitors. If you are really putting some effort into your profile, be sure to save it often, just in case. Also, after each save you do, make it a habit to view the results in that second browser you opened. You opened a second browser to view your About page right?
Conclusion
The data you provide to your visitors is completely up to you. Take some time to consider why you are blogging, what is it you want to achieve from blogging. Express that in your About profile, it what it's there for, and people DO look at them.
I hope this helps some people understand the parts that make up your About page.