The Good News

Over the next week we’re going to be improving the visual presentation of the Updates feature and giving you easier control over what you share and where.

This is how it will look once the Yamster has finished his polishing:

With this lighter design, the change will make it easier to see whether you are currently sharing and let you update this quickly and more simply on a question-by-question or answer-by-answer basis.  You can also quickly choose whether to share with everyone or your contacts only by using the arrow to the right of the tickbox.

Don’t worry about questions showing up against your wishes – if you’ve switched sharing off in the past, it will continue to be switched off.  Otherwise you can choose your setting when you ask  or answer for the first time after we’ve launched this version of Y! updates.

The Bad News

The bad news is that to do this work we need to switch off Updates for the next few days.  This means your questions or answers won’t be shared as Updates to your Yahoo! contacts, and you will not see the Yahoo! Updates box on the Preview your Question page.

We know it’s just a small change but it is one we anticipate will simplify when and how you share your Answers knowledge… and watch this space for more developments around sharing your knowledge!

We have added two new ‘Updates’ features to Answers:

• One notifies your contacts each time you ask a question
• One notifies your contacts of each question you answer

Now, when you are at the “Preview your question” stage of asking a question, you will be prompted to “Manage your updates”. Here you choose if you want to share your updates to your social connections.

By default, updates will be set to “Don’t share my updates” to keep your content private unless you choose otherwise. To give you control over what and when you share, this option can be changed anytime you ask or answer a question. You have full control over this setting from the “Edit my profile” page too. By not sharing your updates, whatever you do on Answers will not appear on your Yahoo! profile.

When you ask or answer we offer a link to your profile to show you exactly who you are currently sharing updates with. Click the “Manage who sees your updates” link to be taken to profiles which is the place where you can control who see all of your Yahoo! Updates.

Had enough of seeing this message? Tick the box and we promise it won’t appear again.

We’ve tried tp make controlling your updates as simple as possible, but if you want more information about managing your Answers updates, you can find it through these Help pages: http://help.yahoo.com/l/mye/yahoo/answers/updates/

If you are still unsure about how your profile works or how to change features on your Yahoo! profile, check out our sister-blog www.yprofileblog.com and this article in particular: http://www.yprofileblog.com/blog/2009/03/31/answers-questions-about-profiles/ that is addressed to Answers users.

We hope you like the new feature, happy updating!