A Better Profile: What do YOU think?

Facebook is redesigning the profile, but we will not see it until spring. Meanwhile here is my take on how it aught to be and I am keen to get your feedback.

First, here are a few points of contention I have with the current profiles.

• the new privacy settings are a good idea but not very usable – especially for those with many many ‘friends’
• we are in varying degrees of conflict about how much personal vs professional information to share, since we have an ‘all in one’ profile.
• those of us who wish to keep a more ‘professional’ business image are having to resist/ignore much of the ‘fun’ side of facebook – or having to keep our business contacts on LinkedIn instead.

As a facebook user here is what I want to do:

• First: my main profile should be ONLY for information I expect to share with all ‘contacts’ (aka friends)
• Each item on the main profile should be marked for it’s level of privacy (such as ’show to all’, ‘groups and friends’, ‘friends only’… etc.) – [much like it already is]
• I then want to organize my contacts (friends) into subgroups at my discretion (ex: social, religious, associates, employers, family.. etc). [note: this feature has recently been added]
• For each subgroup I want a ’subprofile’ that is information items added to the main profile for people in this subgroup (only).
• Each subprofile item should also be marked for privacy like the main profile items are.
• Members of multiple subgroups would see a merged profile: the main profle plus all of the appropriate items (as per privacy) from the subgroups.
• I must be able to view my own profile:

exactly as each subgroup would see it

as if viewed from different places (ex: for each of the privacy settings)

as any specific contact would see it

and be able to edit it ‘in place’ if need be

I personally think this would be much more intuitive for everyone and would provide reasonably granular control over profile information. My business associates, romantic interest, church and family could all see the information most relevant (or appropriate) for them.

Perhaps even your facebook apps could be added per subgroup (and privacy level) if you wanted to keep some things segregated. Mini feed and notes etc. could also be filtered according to the profile.

In the longer term I also think that a profile structure could become universal

• I only one profile/subprofile structure to maintain
• I want it to work across all my contacts – perhaps via OpenID, etc.
• I want it safe and secure – perhaps only on my own device(s)

So… that being said: What do YOU think?