MySpace gets easier with full names by Tom Anderson (Tom) on Myspace

MySpace gets easier with full names

Current mood:grateful

You know how you can change your display name or default picture? You know how you have some friends who change it everyday or 10 times a day? You know how you can never find or identify them beacuse they change it all the time?! Well that's the thinking behind the "display my full name" on MySpace.

We put this feature out there almost six months ago, but people weren't really noticing it, so I wanted to put up this announcement to spread the word.

You're now able to show your full name on MySpace under your picture, while your display name stays on top. Look at my picture to the left, you'll see "Tom" above my picture and "Tom Anderson" underneath it. It's that simple.

To turn it on for myspace/profile, click here.

The idea is that your full/real name should never change, even if you decide to give yourself a new nickname for a few months (or an afternoon). This makes it easier to find your friends in search, or in any of the places where you can type in your friends name to do something:

Tagging them in a photo
Finding them on your friends list
Inviting them to an event
Composing a mesage
On the status history page when you just want to show ONE person's status history

We have some rules around this. If you're going to display your full name, it must be your real name. If you don't want to display it, that's fine. But if you are going to choose to display it, then it must be real. This to avoid confusion, and to make sure the purpose of the feature isn't ruined by people putting goofy stuff in there.

Finally, just to let you know, we'll be adding this in more places--you'll just be able to type in a friends name to find them in other areas where it makes sense. Instead of searching a list of friends, you'll be able to type in a friends name to create a preferred list for a blog, to put someone in a friend category, or to select your top friends, etc.

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