For me the internet is high speed information exchange, receiving & sending. If I come across a webpage/blog that I HAVE to sign in to use, 9 times out of 10 I won’t, and I certainly would not share that site with others. I won’t tweet it, nor share links on facebook, LinkedIn nor email.

It feels spammy, it feels like I have to ask permission before I can read it. It feels like an added obstacle I have to jump over/go through before reading.

Sorry I don’t like jumping through hoops for anyone.
Free reports that ask for my email address, fair enough- they’re offering good value & I always have the option of unsubscribing.

Having to create ANOTHER internet account before I can read an article, NO THANKS!

As I am typing this on a flaky mainline train link, this last point seems pretty pertinent.

If I have to register just to read, forget it, and since that change I moved on elsewhere.. I was registered before, because I actually wanted to post there – as a result of having got used to reading there!!..

Steve, your increase in registrations might have something to do with everyone having to register again (is this classic Nu Lab spin!)..!! At least in my case, I couldn’t get back on with the old login.. This is also why I can’t now be bothered to go back there (apart from the frustration), I am not going through all that reg’n nonsense again, business name, address, phone numbers, the lot..

Someone above mentioned content – don’t forget that it is your readers who are the main contributors of that content – it is a symbiotic relationship, and one party to that relationship in my view has screwed up.

Thanks for taking the time to respond, much appreciated.

You guys obvioulsy know what your’e doing when it comes to building community websites and selling advertising – but from a users perspective, it’s a real pain in the rear.

I’m registered on both sites but if I visit from another computer I need to log in again (if I can remember my credentials). And it seems the sites don’t always remeber my details for me so I need to regulalry re-login.

Thanks for the comments re the redesign. The move to put content behind a registration is not a break with tradition but a return to a previous situation. AccountingWEB has been running for 11 years, for nine of which it was locked down.

It is a balancing act. Removing the registration does open the site to more casual traffic, but, without time consuming and expense list maintenance, registration details will gradually degrade and the ability to target sections of your audience is reduced. There are also considerable advantages to the portfolio in restricting the view that we present to Google.

Second, volume is not the be all and end all. Most search traffic, which tends to be the type most put off by registration, is transitory. As advertisers become increasingly sophisticated, they are more and more looking for targeted campaigns.

Since the sites have been locked down registrations have soared. Ultimately, it is all in the content. AccountingWEB and BusinessZone are more than just blogs. We believe that if the content is sufficiently compelling registration (which only has to be completed once) does not present an insurmountable barrier to entry.

The debate about openID registration is interesting though.

Steve Roth
Managing Editor, Sift Media

The way forward is to support registrations they’ve previously completed. We added support for Facebook, Twitter and OpenID sign ins to our site two months ago and registrations have more than doubled. All because so one can sign in using an existing identity to get immediate access to the stuff they want WITHOUT having to register a new identity.

The more sites support this then the easier it will be for everyone.

You can see what I am talking about at http://www.wecando.biz/access.php – just sign straight in with an existing ID you have; even if you haven’t been to our site before it will work.

Ian Hendry
CEO, WeCanDo.BIZ
http://www.wecando.biz

However, I don’t believe that requiring registration (e.g. list building as a benefit) is a good way to do so.

Why? Because it alienates people. I don’t know about you, but I have twelve million accounts already. I don’t want another one. Especially not to read a blog – which probably isn’t going to be that fantastic anyway.

I’ll go and read another blog, somewhere else!

People are far more fickle these days (and far more reluctant to invest their time into using your website) – anything along these lines is a big turnoff.

That said, it’d be really interesting to see some statistics on this, e.g. how many people bounce when they hit the register/login page, versus how many log in and how many register.

I agree completely, but both sites fall in to the earlier category. They need volume of visitors as they charge per impression (AFAIK) to advertisers – so it should be a case of the more the merrier. Unless I’m missing something.