A nation of community builders since Jan 21, 2009
How much content do you hide behind login?
Hi there to you all,
This is my first entry here and I wonder if we could do a little conversation on a particular topic that I am thinking about these days. First let me introduce myself.
I am one of the founders of a local community site in the Netherlands covering a community of 40.000 inhabitants. We went "live" just 3 months ago (after 8 months preparation) and are now at around 250 registered users, 100+ unique visitors and 1500 page views per day. We need to be patient of course that's one thing, but we can not help ourselves thinking constantly about improvements.
One of those possible "improvements" is hiding more content behind login, forcing more people to register. Currently we hide very little content, just to show off what we offer, but maybe its optimal to hide more. The question of course is if hiding more content, will actually lead to:
+ more registered users and, because that's important in our view,
+ users that are actually willing to contribute (uploading photo's; writing forum reactions) and not just "view"
A related issue is if, when you are starting up, user numbers - do- count (critical mass to get content) and not just real participating users.
What is your opinion? Thanks!
This is my first entry here and I wonder if we could do a little conversation on a particular topic that I am thinking about these days. First let me introduce myself.
I am one of the founders of a local community site in the Netherlands covering a community of 40.000 inhabitants. We went "live" just 3 months ago (after 8 months preparation) and are now at around 250 registered users, 100+ unique visitors and 1500 page views per day. We need to be patient of course that's one thing, but we can not help ourselves thinking constantly about improvements.
One of those possible "improvements" is hiding more content behind login, forcing more people to register. Currently we hide very little content, just to show off what we offer, but maybe its optimal to hide more. The question of course is if hiding more content, will actually lead to:
+ more registered users and, because that's important in our view,
+ users that are actually willing to contribute (uploading photo's; writing forum reactions) and not just "view"
A related issue is if, when you are starting up, user numbers - do- count (critical mass to get content) and not just real participating users.
What is your opinion? Thanks!
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Richard Millington on -
250 registered users is a decent start. Gradually things get better - but it's a gradual process.
I'm usually against hiding content behind a login. Does that benefit users or benefit you?
Usually when you try to benefit yourself you end up hurting the community. People that might be trawling through your community and see a threat they want to respond to, wont do it.
What you need is more active users, preventing people from viewing wont do that. People will probably participate more if you spend more time going out there and reaching out to people, inviting them to join. If you have a local community then why not highlight some major discussions in your community, print some leaflets then drop them in at a few houses and watch the community grow from there. There's no reason why you can't do offline promotion here.
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