The New Google Profile is here!

Last year I announced I'd moved over to the Google Profiles team, and then went all but radio silent as we put our heads down to upgrade the product. Hilariously, last weekend someone not-so-subtly teased me by leaving an anonymous comment on that post: "11 months and counting..." (It's nice to know people are paying attention, I guess!)

Well, the wait's over. Over at the Social Web Blog, you can read the blog post that outlines what's new. Most notable, from my point of view:

• bigger profile pic - go update yours now!
• "scrapbook" lets you pick 5 thumbnails to show on your About page (clicking through will open the pics in full-screen lightbox mode)
• overall update to the look & feel
• "About" tab is the default tab (whether you use Buzz or not)
• Buzz users can choose to hide the tab (if, for instance, you don't use it or just don't want it shown)
• several fields have auto-complete (e.g., schools, employers)
• search visibility is controllable: you can choose to prevent your profile page from being indexed

Here's what the Profile looks like now:

And here's what it looked like before:

There's more (hint: upload multiple profile pics, see if you can figure it out), and a lot more to come in the weeks and months ahead. I'm really proud of the team - this represents a complete rewrite of the profile, and will serve as a great foundation for more fun stuff down the road.

On a separate note, I can now share the news that once we got the Profile to code completion a few weeks ago, I moved over to YouTube. I'm now a PM at YouTube, where I'm responsible for the homepage, YouTube's social strategy and a variety of other related pieces. Leaving the Profiles team was a very tough decision - I loved working with them and am eager to see the next set of things they launch.

That said, the opportunity at YouTube was simply too good to pass up. I'll have more to share about the new gig soon. In the meantime, go update your profile (or create one)!