User Profile field problem

Hi,

I try to put an extra field in the online users pop up box. Originally it contains a link to user's profile page.
In phpfreechat.module in phpfreechat_prepare_params I add an extra param in $params['nickmeta']. The value I try assign is
$target(user)->profile_field. The code is bellow

$params['nickmeta'] = array(
      'drupal_base_url' => $base_url,
      'drupal_user_uid' => $target->uid,
      'profile_field' => $target->profile_field,
      'away' => 'no',
  
    );

The above produces nothing for profile_field. Instead if I change thevariable into something like $target->name the users name displays correctly in the pop up box. None of the profile_fields seems to work, strangely enough.
If I var_dump $target or $params the value is stored correctly. The problem is that it is not displayed for profile_fields!!!

Any ideas about that? I have tried almost everything but still can't figure out what is wrong...