so we rolled out the new home page today - try it out! you can try and come back to the classic view at anytime if you don't like it. (and no, we are not phasing out the classic view.) we're going to be providing you with some different color combinations for the homepage, and some different layouts. eventually you'll be able to drag and drop the different parts so you can emphasize the parts that are important to you. (like say you want your friends box to appear up top, you'll be able to move it in front of the status updates!)
the music player on your profile now has a volume control and a song history link. song history will show the songs you've previously added to your profile. it gives you a way to see more of the songs your friends are into. we'll also let you customize the look & color of the player, but that's not finished yet!
today we also launched new forums (click forums on the main menu). forums now let you save posts and has a hotlink to see all your own posts. in a few weeks you'll be able to search posts, and use a rich text editor to post in bold, italics, & colors. it also has new options for moderators so we'll have more forum moderators and it'll be easier for them to keep the annoying people from ruining the forums!
on the friends view and on the profile, you'll soon see "View all friends, view online friends, view mutual friends, and view recently added friends." some of these options are available in the drop down on the view all friends page, but now we're putting them on the profile page itself so its more prominent. these links will be turned on gradually over the week (recently added will come last.) right now the new links are showing up on some browsers even when the user tried to hide those links with codes.. we're figuring out why that's happening and fixing it. things should be set right soon!
in the photos section we changed the editing interface so you can easily move & delete mass photos. captions are easier to enter. some people were confused about how you set a photo as your default, or how to make it as your album cover. just click on the photo itself and you'll see those options. you can also now tag photos and link them to a friend's profile.
in account settings we have added a spam tab, which lets you do a variety of things - you can make it so someone must be your friend to send you a message. you can set it so someone cannot add you without knowing your last name or email (really cuts down on random friend ads). you can also set it so someone must enter a CAPTCHA to send you a friend request. this will also cut down on people adding you randomly. if you choose this setting make sure you've entered your real name on your profile so that your friends can add you by name.
some other things you may have not noticed - the addressbook has been improved and you can now compose messages without going to your friends profile. because so many people change their display names on myspace, its sometimes hard to find your friends easily from the compose command. that's the idea behind the addresbook - you can save friends in your addressbook and enter your own name for them. if my friend calls himself goofdork124 and changes his display name & pic everyday, i can store him in my addressbook as Ronald Hassledorf and know who it is. (no, i don't really have a friend named Hassledorf.. haha.. ) the addressbook is kind of hidden/low-profile now, but we're going to be adding it to the mail and profile sections so you can easily access it and use it from the mail compose command. stay tuned!
keep sending me comments about what you want to see. that's where all the ideas are coming from - your feedback!! thx!