Digg

Welcome to a new series from Digg on, well, using Digg! First installment is on getting the most of your Digg profile.

There are plenty of Digg users who visit the site just to peruse the latest news, but taking the next step and digging into the social component of the site can greatly enrich a user's experience. The community management team receives requests from users daily asking for help building their own communities of friends; the first step is to make sure you have personalized your profile.

Profile Privacy
All user profiles contain a bit of required information -- the very basics about who they are and where they're from. But we encourage users, especially those interested in growing networks of friends, to be as transparent as possible. That being said, we also provide the tools to restrict certain bits of information from being publicly visible. Not interested in sharing your age? We feel you. You can limit who sees your age, gender, location and full name by logging in and going to your profile settings.

FAQ: Even if you choose to display these deets to "nobody," you'll always see your full mini-bio line when you are logged in and looking at your profile. You're you, after all. So, to ensure that your public profile display reflects your settings, be sure to log out and then check out your profile: http://digg.com/users/YOURUSERNAME/ .

Profile pics
Our default icon for photo-less users may be artsy and cool, but if you're interested in making Digg friends, do yourself a favor and add some images to your profile. You can add a plethora of photos to your gallery and you can specify which will serve as your icon, which is displayed on the site next to your submissions and comments. You don't need to use a personal photo, but if you want to make friends, consider adding a picture of yourself to your gallery. These days, there's really no excuse not to have a personal photo. Seriously, if you don't have one, take one right now. And yes, it's totally OK to use a MySpace angle.

FAQ: Need to remove a photo? Just go to your gallery, click a photo and look for the "delete" link on the right side of the page.

All about you
We want to know what you're all about, but there's limited writing space in your profile, so you'll need to keep the description concise (bonus points for pithy and sassy). Similarly, while we provide you with the ability to add links to your other profiles or favorite online destinations, it's best to stick to just a handful of URLs. Just be sure to keep it family -- and nothing that violates the Digg Terms of Use, please.

With a pimped out profile you should be able to attract new friends, but don't forget to look out for Diggers you already know. You can search for friends by going into your profile, clicking the "Friends' Activity" tab, choosing "add friends" from the right side of the page and following the "Search for Friends" link.

You can also take advantage of our recently launched Facebook Connect feature, found by logging in and going to Your Facebook Connect Settings. The simple connection process lets you automatically befriend all of your Facebook friends who have Digg accounts. More info on Facebook Connect in the Digg Blog.

As always, we welcome your questions or comments. Contact us via email at Digg.com/contact or the Digg Community Team Twitter account.

Hasta pronto,
T.J.