AOL Bebo Migration Issues

The migration of AOL Profiles to Bebo didn’t go as smoothly as planned. For the most part there seems to be great lack of knowledge among AOL members over the inner workings of Bebo. AOL will have to address these issues in some shape or form. These issues were posted by members on various forums and websites.

Each issue is color coded based on whether a workaround exists or not. Workarounds are linked to the individual who found the solution. Unfortunately, I won’t be able to figure out all the problems you have with Bebo, However, if you find a solution to a problem please post in the comments section. I will keep this list up to date as I get notified of new details.

Updated: 5/12/09

Unable to change gender from Male to Female

Description:  Users have reported they are unable to change their gender from Male to Female. When a user changes to their appropriate gender, Bebo will reset as if the changes were not made.

AOL’s Response: No response from AOL could be found.

Workaround: No known workaround.

Bebo added extra numbers to my screen name or someone with my screen name is using my profile.

Description: Some screen names may find they have extra numbers added to their Bebo profile. Bebo will add extra numbers to your screen name if someone already registered your name before the Bebo transition. For example, if your screen name is “Sally”, and someone registered that name on Bebo before you, your Bebo profile will add numbers “Sally12″ so that both of you won’t have the same profile.

Bebo messages sent to the wrong AOL user who shares the same screen name. 

Description: There are some scattered reports of AOL users who have the same screen name with another Bebo member.  The AOL users who report appear to be confused that someone on Bebo registered their screen name before them and thus their screen name now has numbers added to it.

The complaints arise from AOL users who receive messages that were addressed to the original Bebo username. Unfortunately, we don’t have much information about this particular bug as very very few people reported it.  It’s possible that there may be a glitch where two Bebo users are sharing the same inbox, but their profiles are entirely different. If you have a problem similar to this please comment below.

Bebo did not migrate information and photos from AOL Profiles

Description: Some users reported how their profiles were completely wiped out when they transitioned over to Bebo.

Workaround: Lucien Iteratus posted a workaround where you can access your old AIM Profiles for a limited time. Essentially you should copy information from that profile over to the Bebo profile. This backdoor has been shut down by AOL. In April 09,  AOL has moved all AIM photos into Bebo.

• Copy and Paste the address below.
• Replace xx with your screen name
• http://memberdirectory.aol.ca/aolus/profile?sn=xx

AOL’s Response: AOL has not addressed lost information. AIM Photos have successfully transferred over during April, 09.

Unable to edit basic profile information.

Description: Some users are unable to edit their profile information.  When one tries to change this information the profile reverts back as if no changes were made.

Workaround: AOL Message board member Moondancer  posted a workaround. Click “Edit Profile” at your Bebo.com profile. In the “Name” text box, make the first letter uppercase. If you change the first letter to lowercase, Bebo will not allow you to save any changes.

AOL’s Response: No response from AOL could be found.

Buddy Group “Profile Friends” shows up in your buddy List and cannot be deleted. The message “An error has occurred please try again later” appears if you try to delete the group on AOL.

Description: Some users reported a buddy group called “Profile Friends” on their AIM Buddy List. Members are unable to delete the group. The screen names of your Bebo.com friends will get added to this group. Removing your friends from Bebo will delete them from your buddy list.

Workaround: AOL Message board member Soozy posted a workaround.  After April 6th, AOL has fixed this bug.

• Sign into Bebo.com with your AIM screen name.
• Click “Friends” at the top black bar in the website.
• All your friends will be listed with a Red X at the top right corner of their picture.
• Click the Red X to delete each of your friends from Bebo.com
• After you remove ALL your friends from Bebo.com, sign off of AOL or AIM.
• Sign back onto an official AOL / AIM program and the “Bebo Friends” group will be gone.
• The “Bebo Friends” group will reappear if you add a new friend to Bebo.com
• If you cancel your Bebo account, it will take 24+ hours before the buddy group is removed from your buddy list.

AOL’s Response:  “At this point we do not support deleting Bebo Groups” -dev forum

Recommendation: AOL should allow the option of turning on or off your Bebo Friends group. Currently there is no way to manually delete the group without deleting all your friends.

AOL Profile module, “Code Snippet”, is missing on some profiles.

Description: In this case the AOL exclusive module, “code snippet”, is missing for AOL/AIM profiles.  Bebo forbids adding AOL exclusive modules to your page even though your profile originated from AOL/AIM.

Workaround: No workaround exists yet. You can try an alternative application. If you entered text within Code Snippet before February, 2009, it will show up in your Bebo modules list.

AOL’s Response:  No response from AOL could be found.

Friends from previous profile are missing with Bebo update

Description: Some friends who were added before the Bebo migration do not show up now.

Workaround: Visit your friend’s profile and manually add them back.

AOL’s Response: AOL is aware of this issue and included it in a blog posting. AOL automatically updated the missing friends during a 3/20/09 update.

Unable to edit About Me and code snippet modules

Description: Some users are unable to edit the “About Me”  and “Code Snippet” module.

Workaround: Both “About Me” and “Code Snippet” modules do not support Internet Explorer 6. You will need to upgrade your browser to one of the choices presented on this browser upgrade page.

AOL’s Response: Bebo states some features are not supported by older versions of Internet Explorer.

Recommendation: Since other modules are compatible with IE6, these two modules should be reprogrammed.

[AOL/AIM  Bebo Migration Guide]

Code Snippet, Where is it? [AIM/AOL Bebo Profiles]

So you’ve switched over to Bebo, but you find the Code Snippet box isn’t there, what do you do? Cry! Profiles with Code Snippet before the Bebo takeover will have it listed in their modules section. Profiles who did not use code snippet will have it missing from their module list. Don’t fret, there is an alternative!

Gigya’s “My stuff” Application

1. Go to: http://www.bebo.com/Profile.jsp?MemberId=5881631369

2. Click on Try this App

3. Press “Add Application”

Its pretty much just like Code Snippet. You add HTML code and it will display it for you.

Did you know you can add flash and mp3s to code snippet? Check out this handy guide!

[AOL/AIM Bebo Migration Guide]

How to Cancel AIM/AOL Bebo Profile

The steps for removing your AIM/AOL account on Bebo is very easy. Just remember you can not reverse this process unless you want to contact Bebo staff on your own. You will not be able to go back to the old AIM Profiles. 

1. Click Settings at the top of the page.

2. Click on “cancel my account”

3. Click “Yes, Cancel my Bebo Membership”

Here are some notes about canceling.

• You won’t be able to view most of your AIM or AOL friend’s profiles if they forgot to set the account to public.
• Be sure to inform your friends to set their profiles as public.
• You won’t be able to re-register the same AOL email address as a new account.
• To reactivate your profile you need to contact Bebo Support.
• It will take 24+ hours before you are fully removed from Bebo’s system. This includes the Profile Friends group on your buddy list and your status messages.
  
• Click Here to read instructions on how to remove Bebo Friends from your buddy list.
  

[AOL/AIM Bebo Migration Guide]

AOL Profiles replaced by Bebo and Users Hate it!

So a few weeks ago at the end of February, AIM Profiles became Bebo. The new profile system allows more control over your profile allowing you to add videos, music, and text, in a much easier fashion than AIM Profiles. However, dedicated AIM Profiles users were really ticked off with what seemed like a sudden change over to the Bebo profiles. Some users pointed out how they were not notified about this change and had no idea it was about to occur. Before we continue on, I want to address this issue first.

Did AOL notify users that AIM Profiles would switch to Bebo?

Yes, in fact, there was a yellow bar at the top of every profile giving you a preview for what the new profile system would look like.  There was really no way of avoiding that announcement if you used AIM profiles last year. I’ve also covered this in previous entry four months ago that you can read here in case you need proof. 

As it happens whenever AOL changes something, most users get disgruntled, they assemble their pitch forks and flames, they walk up to AOL’s headquaters and raise hell! The same thing pretty much happened when AOL changed “AOL Profiles” over to the same sytem AIM profiles used, but that’s another story.

Some have started their own petitions gaining over 3000 signatures about this event. I totally agree, the Bebo profiles are not user friendly for AOL users. Settings are pretty much scattered all over the place and there isn’t one central area for everything you need. Some users describe their experience with it as frustrating, confusing, and a piece of garbage. AOL will have to modify the Bebo setup to appeal to the AOL side. As for those who already exist on Bebo, they are quite used to it and understand how it works.

But I’m here to help. The likeliness of AIM Profiles coming back is slim, so we just have to make due with what we have. The next post will feature a guide to some of the confusing issues with Bebo. We’ll have a little walkthrough where you can ask questions and I’ll get back to you as I find out.

[AOL/AIM  Bebo Migration Guide]

AIM’s New Chat Experience; Add Chatrooms To Your Website

AOL has just exposed the new AIM Chat Experience on their front page. The new chatrooms ditches Userplane’s flash based interface and attempts to ease the migration for AOL users into a web based format. This will also be the first time AIM users can enter an AOL member created chatroom.

The Setup

On the left column lists all the users in the chatroom. Each user has their own icon which you can upload at profiles.aim.com. If you hover over the screen names, you can either view a profile, IM, ignore, or report a user. In the center is the complete chatroom, it places every text in it’s own little speech bubble. If someone types more than one line, the chat bubble expands downwards. On the right side is the media panel. Users can paste links to videos, photos, or just a plain old link.

The Implication

Yes, even after the invention of MP3s, the WAV chatrooms still exist.

From the names of the chatrooms that are appearing in the user created area, it seems AOL has finally migrated the old “FDO Chats” to the internet. FDO Chats were previously exclusive only to those with @aol.com screen names under AOL client software. Now that AIM users can also chat in AOL chatrooms, expect a clash.

The Design Flaws

The designers chose to have each line of chat appear in a speech bubble. The basic design and colors used for the chat bubbles are very distracting and clash against the main background. Some themes, as noted in the screenshot above, make the situation even worse. I also didn’t quite understand why the screen names are placed on the right side of the speech bubble.

If the designers could try to follow in iChat’s footsteps by creating smoother speech bubbles and placing names on the left side, it might make these chatrooms more visually appealing.

Chat widget

The chat widget runs under yourminis.com platform which AOL acquired recently. At least it is being put to use unlike Bebo, as we have yet to hear any news on how AIM Profiles will utilize it.

[via the daily chatter]

AOL Xdrive will close Janurary 12, 2009 – How to Backup Files

AOL sent out an email today warning users to backup all your storage from Xdrive. Xdrive will shut down on Janurary 12, 2009. This also affects Bluestring users as well since both websites use the Xdrive platform. We’ll help you along the way and run through some steps you can use to backup files. We’ll also add in some tips for other websites you can backup your files to.

Did You Know: By backing up all files from Xdrive…
You are also backing up pictures from AOL Pictures.

How to Backup Xdrive Files

• First log into Xdrive
• Click Download Your Entire Account

As you reach this step either you’ll see a link of a zip of all your files or not. It depends on if your zip is ready or not. If it is, download the file and you can extract all your files in a Zip File. Click here to learn how to open and extract a zip file. If your files are not ready yet, please keep reading on.

How to Generate A Zip Backup

If your files are not ready, go back to the previous page and click on Xdrive Classic, a new window will now pop up on the screen.

Click on the small tick box next to the word name, then click the green download arrow. It will take several minutes for the download box to appear, please be patient as Xdrive generates your zip file.

One it pops up, click save, or save file. Choose the location you want it to download in, like for example, Desktop. Don’t understand zip files? Click here to learn how to take files out of a zip file.

Where can I backup my Xdrive files online?

Well there are several places, we shall list some we deem appropriate for your Xdrive content. Each site has their own rules and limitations, you may not be able to get back the same amount of space you used up before. Below there will be a review for each site and you can decide whether you want to use it or not.

Box.net would be the first choice for Xdrive Users

• 1GB of Space (4GBs less than Xdrive)
• 25Mb File Size
• 10GB/Month

ADrive.com has as much storage as the premium version of Xdrive.
It has some of the features Xdrive has.

• 50GB of Space (Same as Xdrive Premium)
• 2GB File Size
• Unknown Bandwith

For Xdrive users who liked having a program to upload files, Dropbox has a similar experience where one can just drag and drop a file, and it will be uploaded into storage.

• 2GB of Space (3GBs less than Xdrive)
• 350MB File Size
• Unknown Bandwith

Goodbye AOL Journals, Hello Blogger!

AOL Journals has finally called it quits after 5 years. Through the years it went through a few rough spots, but managed to create a small dedicated user base whom enjoyed networking with their peers. On October 31st, 2008, AOL Journals will cease to exist. Leaving many of it’s dedicated following frustrated over it’s demise.

Migrate to Blogger

The next step for AOL Journals users is to migrate their account to Blogger. Interestingly, AOL has teamed up with Google to create a transfer tool to ease the process for you. Though, after you migrate your blog, I recommend exporting it to another platfom. If you need help on the import process, visit Blogger Help AOL Import.

A Brief History

When AOL Journals initially launched, it felt as though it was a replacement for AOL Hometown. AOL Hometown was a basic website generator, but was very limited, and used an overly annoying Java script application to run it. Instead of using AOL Hometown to describe oneself, AOL Journals was meant to serve as a blogging outlet for all members. AOL Journals could not manage gain much popularity among the main user base. This could be because it due to lack of advertising, for one there were no AOL Journals tabs in AOL Profiles, one of the highly viewed features on AOL.

To generate some buzz, The The Magic Smoke began as a blog that would feature other bloggers and provide up to date information regarding features, bugs, and outages. This blog expanded further  on community development, and lead to the creation of CoMET, which served as a guide for new and old AOL members.

Even AOL’s own developers joined the AOL Journals platform, where we could get a behind the scenes look on what to expect. Among the years AOL Jounals added some new features including tagging support, RSS feeds, and integration of “whitelisted” embeddable content such as Flickr slideshows.

Limited Features: A Brief History Part 2

Even with such features AOL Journals just could not gain a large grasp on AOL members. Sure many started their own journal, but abandoned it usually after the first post. The lack of customization was a huge deterrence. Though some customization through CSS was planned, it never really saw the light of day. Later on,  even AOL’s own development and community teams moved outside of AOL Journals and started their own websites. After AOL acquired BlogSmith, all major blogs began utilizing this platform.

Whats next in store for AOL?

Well all I can really speculate is Bebo. AOL did acquire them and we have yet to see what they are planning to do with it. We do know they will integrate AIM Profiles in some form. In addition, Bebo also has its own blogging platform. 

When AOL splits, Where do we end up?

The Great Divide

Time Warner plans to split AOL into two factions, an advertisement unit and a dial-up unit. The plan will be to sell off each unit to potential buyers.

Dial-up users do not make up the majority on AOL so giving them away won’t be such a big deal. Plus this means that AOL will finally have no use for India call centers, although they still might work as online tech support.

The advertising unit also known as Platform A, accounts for the whole AOL community, but mainly focuses on Ad.com. Platform A consists of tons of websites and brands all across the internet. Its a very lucrative spot to potential buyers as they will have ad spots in tons of areas including the massive AIM user base.

I am a Dial-up User, Where do I go?

Earthlink has been in talks to take over dial-up subscribers. I believe dial-up users will be switched over to an entirely new Earthlink email address, Their AOL account will automatically be switched over to free and they will be encouraged to use both emails. This is just purely speculation.

I am a Broadband User, Where do I go?

As for the advertisement unit, it looks like we’ll end up joining Microsoft or Yahoo, or hopefully someone else who wants to step up to the plate.

Romance of the Three Kingdoms

The most interesting part of this merger is the drama between each of the major companies. Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft are battling it out to gain the largest footprint over internet advertisement revenue. If AOL merges with Yahoo, Microsoft gets upset. If AOL merges with Microsoft, Google gets upset. Added to this problem includes the recent deal Yahoo and Google are making to share advertisement plans. Microsoft isn’t so happy about that either and wants the decision blocked. I’m hoping neither of these companies buy AOL. As you can see its already a tangled mess. Joining forces with AOL will only complicate matters.

If Microsoft or Yahoo does indeed buy AOL, interoperability will finally be on the table. Whoever buys AOL will now have to integrate all AOL screennames together with the buyer’s IM service. For the first time we may finally have AIM with the ability to add Microsoft and Yahoo subscribers to the buddy list. I know many have have been clamoring for that.

The other great feature is advertisement revenue. Now Yahoo or Microsoft will have an even larger audience to host advertisements, including non-AOL owned websites that Ad.com serves.

The Buzz Around the Internets

There seems to be no agreement as to who should buy AOL. One thought is that If Microsoft buys AOL, it could allow Yahoo to prove themselves to investors that they can run independent of Microsoft. Another speculates that AOL won’t be able to save the Microsoft brand. We may find ourselves watching the same thing happen years from now when Microsoft announces it will try to sell off AOL.

During this battle, users are always the victims. If I were to choose a company that could attempt to save the AOL community to bring them back together, I would choose Yahoo. Yahoo has proven its expertise in this aspect with sites such as Yahoo Groups and Yahoo Answers.

What do you think will happen to AOL?

Post a comment on your ideas and thoughts as to what might happen to AOL. You’ll have to wait until 2009 its announced what plans AOL will be forced to make.

Aim 6.8 Skin Packs

In the upcoming weeks all skins on this site will be converted over to Aim 6.8 format. This also allows us to group selected skins together to make it easier to download all of them at once. The following skins have been grouped together into one pack:

OS Pack

• AimXP
• AimXP Blue
• Leopard OS X
• Leopard OS X Frost
• Vista Basic

Bump X Pack

• BumpXRed
• BumpXBlue
• BumpXGreen
• BumpXPink

Aim Profiles: Code Snippet Removed & Unable to save your changes at this time.

This issue has been floating around for a couple of weeks now. It has not been addressed by AOL at all. Some users will receive “Unable to save your changes at this time.” error messages when trying to edit their AIM Profiles. This usually occurs when all profile information has been mysteriously deleted.

Currently Fixed

There have been a small amount of users who have noticed their profiles are back in working order. This has been fixed by AOL.

Unable to change Private Profile to Public

Also we’ve been receiving reports about users unable to switch between private and public profiles because the options are grayed out. Please keep in mind that until your screen name hits its sixteenth birthday, you will not be able to change it to a public profile.

Code Snippet Module Removed

In another upset, AOL has removed the Code Snippet module due to bugs, it is expected to come back at an unknown date.

Aim 6.8 and Aim For Windows Mobile

Aim 6.8

Aim 6.8 was recently went GM a few days ago. Its new features have been covered here already, but as with newer versions, comes new complaints. Most of which deal with the plugins carousel at the bottom of the buddy list.

Aside from that, now that this version adds the ability to save and load buddy lists, it should make it more friendly for Aim 5.9 users who never switched over. The stock ticker might not be back as of yet, but instead it does come with a stocks plugin for current information only.

Aim For Windows Mobile

Oh yes! The mobile revolution has been finally been made. Its been years since we’ve been waiting for mobile applications made directly by AOL with no carrier tie-in. Thus Aim For Windows Mobile has been made for Windows Mobile 5 and Windows Mobile 6.

Aim for Windows Mobile uses your cellphone’s data connection, not SMS messages like Verizon and T-mobile uses. Please make sure you have an unlimited data plan or you may be incurring extra charges per MegaByte.

[via AOL BETA]

New Aim Express 7 with New Aim 6.8 Beta 3

Aim Express 7 Beta has a brand new interface iPhone-like interface. Taking some hints from Meebo, Aim Express now is completely in Adobe Flash. So no more javascript error messages for you! Another big complaint is when AIM Express would pop over all your windows when you receive a new IM. That my friends is no longer an issue in Aim Express 7.

Whats New in Aim Express 7?

Absolutely nothing… Its pretty much as basic as you can get. You can IM, set yourself as away, and add or delete buddies, thats all there is to do.

iPhone-like Interface?

Taking a slice out of the iPhone’s pie, Aim Express 7 has the same slide out visual effect when you open a tab. All IMs now appear on the top as tabs. Each tab you press slides the whole screen to the left just like Safari on the iPhone. With this new interface, it makes you wonder how Aim 7.0 will be.

Aim 6.8 Beta 3

Aim 6.8 Beta 3′s main purpose is to integrate plugin developers with users. AOL has been boasting their API for quite some time. However, plugin developers had a tough time getting the much needed attention they deserved to get users to install their plugins.

With Aim 6.8 Beta 3, the integration is now much more visually apparent. A new ‘Get More’ button straight at the bottom of the buddy list will allow you to see the most downloaded, and most recently updated plugins. It also features a developer highlight which at this time doesn’t seem to be up yet. There is also a much needed slider button for the plugins. This feature seems to be working erratically in this build as I was unable to even slide it up or down.

[Developing Aim with Action Script]

AOL now on SALE, but which company should buy it? (Part 1)

Time Warner is now deciding what it should do with its AOL venture. Now its time for the fun part. Who should buy AOL? Well lets take a look at each and every company suggested by various users around the internet. This will be split into 3 parts, adding new companies as we go along. 

Time Warner has decided that AOL should be split into two. One part deals mainly with advertising aspects, and the other dealing with community.  

Goal: To keep the AOL + AIM community together as it once was.

The Obvious

AOL + Google

Well personally, I like this idea only because of how Google treats its members. They take a very minimalist approach resulting in less flashy ads and faster loading times. AOL members have been pleading for less ads, but their wishes were never granted.

However, even if we take away those crazy ads, AOL (paying) members do not like change. It pretty much boggles my mind of how they want things to stay the same like it did from 10 years ago. If you change one thing they go crazy and start complaining. As long as Google provide some sort of blog that can address community issues, things might work out  more smoothlyfor them.

Google’s approach may not fare so well with AIM. AIM’s business relies on teens, glitter, and glam. So we’d hope for Google be consistent with AIM’s visual design and services.

AOL + Microsoft

Microsoft may do well with AIM members but not so much with AOL members. Microsoft is big on advertising so I would expect to see pretty much no changes in any of the websites AOL owns. AOL (paying) members love guidance and tech support, and Microsoft stance on this has been pretty lapse. Microsoft does work very well with troubleshooting on message boards, so hopefully problems can get sorted out there.

This seems to be the most obvious choice to keep everything running the same way. In fact I prefer this over Microsoft + Yahoo. Google’s reaction towards this would be very interesting. Google and AOL have done some minor cooperative efforts this past year, hopefully they won’t totally cut themselves off from each other.

AOL + Yahoo

I can definitely see Yahoo converting AOL members over to its own platform, which pretty much kills everything. So I’m not entirely liking this prospect at all, unless it becomes Microsoft + AOL + Yahoo. I don’t think Yahoo is mature enough at this point in time to handle two conflicting communities concurrently. Maybe this could have worked years ago when Yahoo was all the rage and Google wasn’t even born yet.

AOL develops another new AIM Client For Mac

This new client plays catch up to features already existing on Windows. It’s built with AIMCC SDK, and now allows support for plugins (previously a Windows exclusive feature). There seems to be a little discussion about why should AOL develop a new Mac client when iChat does everything. From all the people who post on message boards, there’s still quite a few people who did not know that iChat could use the AIM network. Others have been begging for AOL for years to develop a new Mac application. 

Some feel that AOL has abandoned Macs and left them outside in the cold to fend for themselves. It’s not that they didn’t have alternatives to choose from, there’s still Adium which has been serving the Mac community very well. However, with third party programs, you ultimately realize certain features will never be available to you and you’ll just have to live with it. So with all that in mind, pick the software you feel most comfortable with. You don’t need to worry about what so & so company is making. You can try it out by Downloading it here!

Aim 6.5.7.20 Released

Aim 6.5.7.20 was released this week, and features the ALL NEW… actually nothing really is new, its just bug fixes. It does add a new module called “Hot Searches” which recieved a lukewarm response from the beta testers. I think they didn’t care much for it, quite personally. There are some UI changes to the buddy info and thats about it. All skins on this site will be updated on the weekend, so check back when they are ready.