I have about 300 contacts on Facebook. The other day I went through every single one of them to see if I could find them on About.me.

If you’re not aware of it, it’s a site where you can create a one-page profile, then add a short biography and some links to your social media presences – like mine, above.

Without an automatic “find your friends” feature, my search became a bit of a tedious process. And when I had finished, I was really shocked to discover that only two of my Facebook friends have About.me profiles. I found this really surprising. I have worked in a lot of tech companies and many of my friends are IT, internet, marketing and social media types. I would have expected them to be savvy about this service and for far more of them to be on there.

OK, so the service has only been live since last December, so perhaps it isn’t well known yet. Or perhaps people know about it and just don’t think it worthwhile.

I personally think it’s worthwhile. It particularly lends itself to people who are creative and artistic, like designers and photographers, because they can showcase themselves with a high quality and imaginative photographic profile. And even if you’re not in the same league as the creatives, if nothing else, a profile provides a free advert for you or your company.

About.me was swiftly bought out after launch by AOL, so they must have seen some potential in it. Not that I am sure how they will monetise it – and future profit potential can be the only reason for buying it – so  I’d bet my life savings that they do have plans for it.

They have also recently integrated Klout social media influence scoring [edit – this service closed in 2018], which more of my friends are on. And you can get some fab moo.com business cards with your profile on them. All in all, I think it’s a great site. I was pleased that I had some great new photos taken recently, because I was able to update my About.me profile so that it looks as snazzy as some of the others.

There are lots of innovative ways to use it. I love how True Ventures has created a page on its founders, that then links to their About.me profiles.

And you don’t just have to use a picture of yourself. Here are a few examples of how About.me can be used more creatively. There’s a writer who uses plain and simple imagery to show what he does; an animator who uses his own work; a corporate profile that showcases their work and someone who has photographed themselves in an imaginative way.