

Ask HN: When and When Not To Have A Front Page Sign Up Wall? - staunch

By "sign up wall" I mean a front page that requires you provide information (location/name/email, etc) before you can enter the site.<p>When does it make sense to have a sign up wall the way Groupon or Quora does and when doesn't it make sense?<p>Should all new products do it and then stop at some point (when)?<p>Should user-generated sites do it (to reduce the friction of contributing later)?<p>Has anyone written intelligently about this?
======
michaelpinto
You should only use that technique if either the only way you can look at the
information in context is to signup (think of a game or Facebook) or if the
content is so amazing that you're not afraid to peel off users. It should be
noted that many ad driven campaigns force you to these screens — in that case
the ad was about acquiring your email address so the site figures it's now or
never.

If you want to see if it's a good idea for your site just do some A/B testing.
In fact with A/B testing you can even play with the wording of the signup to
see what works and what doesn't work. You can also do A/B testing with pages
that don't have a wall but have a tout to encourage you to signup.

On a user generated site you might only dare to do this if you already have a
pool of content that people must look at no matter what. But if you don't have
that pool the kids will be very upset that you made them get an ID card.

~~~
staunch
Thanks for the reply. My big concern is that A/B testing is so limited in
scope. I know I'd get _more_ sign ups if I have a sign up wall, but what am I
trading for that? Do 50%+ less people know about my site now? Is that worth
the sign ups?

My gut instinct is that sign up walls suck, but then you see some people who
seem to really believe in them. Just not sure how to measure the medium-term
consequences or even really think about the topic in a coherent way.

~~~
michaelpinto
I think you should put that energy into making a great product and marketing
to get the word out! Look at it my way:

If you spend 40 hours doing A/B testing that could be 20 hours adding that one
cool feature and another 20 hours doing PR to get the word out.

Yes if you've already spent $100k to build your product and another $100k for
a banner ad campaign then put up that wall and hold onto each body -- but if
you aren't that stage really focus on making something great.

You'd be better off getting people on the site to tell a friend than to drive
away each person with a signup (look at dropbox as an example).

------
angryasian
what is a sign up wall , like an invitation only site ?

~~~
staunch
I added a definition to my question. I'm not sure what the most widely used
term is.

