Will Ross here. Welcome to The Traveling Avatar’s Quick and Dirty Tips for a Better Second Life. On this show we discuss tips and tricks for the game Second Life, created by Linden Labs. This week’s episode Profiling--a quick rundown of profiles and how to set them up.

One of the things that separates the newbie from the… umm… oldbie in Second Life is a fully filled out profile.  It’s actually though profiles, and not chat that I tend to make my first impressions about people, and there’s a reason for that.  To me, nothing tells me who someone is, and who someone thinks they are, more than their profile. 

If you don’t know how to view profiles yet, it’s simple.  Just right click someone to bring up the radial menu and then choose “Profile.” 

To edit your profile, right click yourself to bring up the radial menu, and then choose “Edit Profile.” 

The first tab of a profile, marked “2nd life”, is a sort of mission statement for yourself.  This page shows your name, partner, born on date, group affiliations, and gives you enough space to give people a basic description of yourself in the “About” section.  You’re also required by profile law to include one of the following:

• The line, “I don’t bite…hard.”  “Hard” can also be substituted with “Unless you want me to.”
• Any song lyric or poem, as long as it pertains to a recent break up.
• Or an engagement notice followed by no less than sixty-eight exclamation points. (Second lifers like getting partnered as much as they like breaking up.)

Now you only get five hundred characters, but unless you write like Stephen King trying to describe a pair of shoes, it should be enough to tell your entire life story.

You can also add a photo by dragging a snapshot or texture into the box provided.

The “Web” tab comes after this and can be used to display a web site.  If you make one specifically for your Second Life profile, remember that the resizing is minimal, so you may want to build most of it in the top left corner of the page.  Or just throw on a Google page if you want an easy-to-access search engine.

The third tab, “Interests,” can be used to store information on your skills, languages, and interests.  To be completely honest, though, I tend to skip this page and go right to the fourth tab when I read a profile.

The fourth tab, and the second most important is the “Picks” tab.  Originally intended as a place to show off your favorite locations, most people now use this tab to show off their favorite people, snapshots, or just as “Extra” profile space.  I’d make two suggestions with your picks page.  First, remember that wherever you’re working on your profile from is where the landmarks in your picks page will be set to, so don’t work on them at home unless you want every stranger to be able to find your house easily. Secondly when adding your friends, or significant others, try to use just a first name.  It’s too easy for people to datamine loads of information about you otherwise, by reading all of your friends profiles too.

The fifth tab is the “Classified” listings, and honestly I’ve never once met someone and jumped over there to find out what they are selling.  It’s just not useful information to me.  I’m not going to go in to the details of classifieds on this show, since that’s an entirely different show.

Now, the sixth tab is the “First Life” tab, and here I’d urge caution.  Remember that this is information you’re sharing with the whole world, so you might want to avoid real life photos, or overly specific information about yourself. “I work for a cell phone company” is probably OK. “I work at the Sprint store in Omaha, Nebraska right next to the GameStop and I normally get off of work at 7 p.m. Central Standard Time”--probably not so much.

The final “My Notes” tab I’ve never found much use for.  It’s basically a little secret notepad where you can store information about another person’s avatar.  Though, I suppose you could use it to store every dumb thing your significant other says, for use in future fights.

That’s it for this episode!  Stop by the website at QuickAndDirtyTips.com to check out my Twitter Page, if you want to see what I’m up to on any given day! Send your feedback or question to secondlife@quickanddirtytips.com, and the comment line is 206-888-6975; that’s 206-888-mysl. The Traveling Avatar’s Quick and Dirty Tips for a Better Second Life is part of the Quick and Dirty Tips network, so be sure to check out other great shows like Grammar Girl, Legal Lad, and the Mighty Mommy at QuickAndDirtyTips.com. 

So until next time, remember, just because you can use your profile page to smite your enemies with your enormous wit, sometimes it’s better to not beat a dead horse.