Hack 17 Create an 'About You' Area
By letting other Amazon customers know a little bit about you, you'll add some context and personality to your lists or reviews.
An "About You" page is like a home page for you at Amazon. Any time you add a review, create a Listmania! list [Hack #41], guide [Hack #37], or wish list [Hack #18], it will be accompanied by a link to your About You page. If someone sees something you've contributed to Amazon and wants more information about you, they can visit your page to learn more.
To customize your page, make sure you're logged in [Hack #13], click the Your Store tab from any page, and choose "Your About You Area" from the lefthand side of the page.
17.1 Controlling Who Sees What
Click "Edit About You" to add or change information. If it's your first time setting up your page, you'll see a form with a few options you can set:
- Name
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This should be your real name. It will be used to personalize Amazon. You can set whether or not other people can see it with your Identity Preferences.
- Nickname
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This is a name that will appear instead of your real name in some public spaces. It's also used as your name for any Amazon Chat spaces.
- Identity Preferences
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This lets you set whether or not your name is available to other people on your About You page and other nonanonymous contributions to the site. You can set your nickname to override your name for public spaces. Or you can choose to reveal your name only to those people you give the special status Amazon Friend [Hack #42].
- Email Preferences
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You can make your email address available to everyone on your About You page, or only to a select few Amazon Friends. With the Amazon Friends option selected, anyone searching for your wish list with your email address will be able to find it.
- Description
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This is a spot for your biography. Remember that whatever you write will be available to the public, so make sure you're comfortable with others reading it. Looking at a blank form asking the question "Who Are You?" could invite hours of philosophical introspection. But a few quick facts that will distinguish you from others on the site with the same name is a good place to start.
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17.2 Adding a Picture of Yourself
To finish up your About You page, you can add or choose a graphical representation of yourself. This image will appear alongside your name or nickname on your About You page and on any of your Amazon Friends' pages. Click "Edit Image" and you'll find several premade graphics to choose from. They're cartoon-like graphics of people and faces.
To really stand out from the crowd, though, you can add a real photograph of yourself. Amazon doesn't host the images, so you'll need to have some web space of your own. Upload an image, copy the full URL, and paste it into the space provided on the "Edit Image" page.
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