Profiles:  

You can customize your hi5 page with skins created by other users. However, once you choose a skin you cannot customize it farther with HTML or CSS code. You can also use the simple profile editor that allows you to change background color, font types and sizes. On your profile page, post details about yourself such as your physical description, who you are looking to network with, where you are from, your birthday, education and occupation.

You can write journal entries, upload photos, music and videos. Add existing friends from Yahoo, AOL or Hotmail accounts and join Groups. You can also see who has viewed your profile in the last 30 days.

All the major categories of hi5’s website appear at the top of each page and a tab highlights the category of the current page (Messages, Video, Music, etc.) so you can easily navigate the website. A Google search box is available to search the Web or you can search for people and videos on the hi5 website. You can also view the website in seven languages.

You need Macromedia Flash to join chat rooms that are based on shared interests and to connect with people in your area.

Security:  

There is a “Privacy” link at the top of every page where you can set a number of privacy settings including who sees your profile, accepting comments and message and photo settings.

hi5 allows you to be really specific when setting your privacy options. Each major section of your profile can have its own privacy setting like friends only, all users, tagging photos and more.

Networking Features:  

hi5 provides some networking features like groups but we were surprised to see they do not include instant messaging, chat rooms or entertainment features like music or videos. Most of hi5’s networking features rely heavily on their apps. We would have liked to see dedicated sections for music and videos. We also found hi5 does not have the ability to upload your own videos.

Browse Groups or search Group categories by keyword. A number next to each Group category indicates the number of existing Groups within that category.

Search:  

We had some difficulty using hi5’s search feature. You can find friends using your email address book. When you place your contacts in the box hi5 will look for that email in their database. Aside from searching for friends through email, you can browse by keyword. However, it’s not as easy as it sounds. Although they have a Google search box located at the top of your profile page to search for friends you have to type in some keywords like a name of a person to get results. From there you can go into an advanced search that lets you look for people by name, age and location.

Help/Support:  

hi5 provides a long comprehensive list of FAQs to answer account questions or how to use the various features of the website. We were unable to find an email contact or form submission for questions. They do provide a ticket system for technical bugs, but do not expect to receive a response if you have a general site question.

Legitimate Friend Focus:  

hi5’s difficult search feature makes it really tough for strangers to find you and randomly make friend requests. We felt safe using hi5’s site and did not get any unsolicited requests or spam.

hi5 has a variety of features such as chat rooms, groups and profile customization. Overall, hi5 is a good social networking website that is very popular all over the world; however, we would like to see them incorporate more “time wasting” features like video and music. Although, we liked that they did not have advertisements on their site.