Comment by harryf | Hacker News Reader

Comment by harryf | Hacker News Reader

The reason why Yahoo! has failed so far with their mobile apps is very simple - they try to force users to login. For example the new (supposedly awesome) Flickr app http://i.imgur.com/i6mjzHZ.jpg or Tumblr http://i.imgur.com/QpbDE4r.jpg - there's no way to "dip your toe in" without creating a login.

Luke Wroblewski nailed this long ago - "Mobile Signup Forms must Die" http://www.lukew.com/ff/entry.asp?1678 - it's not rocket science but if you allow your old school web thinking to define your app UX, you will fail. If you have any clue about mobile audiences you use gradual engagement to allow them to get on board incrementally.

The average mobile user probably has about 30 seconds to give you until the next push notification from WhatsApp, Snapchat, Instagram, Twitter or whatever distracts them and their gone. If you waste that time on forcing them through a signup process, don't expect to see uptake.

And failing by login isn't a new thing for Yahoo! For many happy Flickr users (myself included) they killed it for us by forcing Yahoo login onto the site. From http://gizmodo.com/5910223/how-yahoo-killed-flickr-and-lost-...

> Yahoo's RegID solution turned out to be a nightmare for the existing community. You could no longer use your existing Flickr login to get to your photos, you had to use a Yahoo one. If you did not already have a Yahoo account, you had to create one. And you did not even log in on Flickr's home page, upon arriving, you were immediately kicked over to a Yahoo login screen.

...but that's another story. I'm still bitter

What social mobile apps don't require you to login? Twitter does, Facebook does, Google+ does, I can't name a single one that doesn't.

I think the point is that you should be allowed to browse without a login. Then, when you want to use any of the social features, you will be asked to create an account.

I've looked at photos on Flickr without having an account on the web, why not with a mobile app too?

Exactly. Flickr and Tumblr are both primarily about the content - there's no need to force users to login before they can explore.

Also Facebook, Twitter et. al are the wrong examples to be looking at - brands already so strong people will jump through hoops to use them.

If you're Yahoo! - coming from behind - your brand and even the brands of Flickr and Tumblr aren't strong enough to to require users login before they get to try anything. In the case of Tumblr you might get the _existing_ userbase from the web to come with you but you won't succeed in growing that audience on mobile.

Examples that do use gradual engagement would be games. Clash of the Clans for example - a huge success on mobile - let's you immediately start playing without any form of identification. Many mobile games have strong social elements but they focus first on getting you engaged before requiring anything.

That's fine, but the claim that "The reason why Yahoo! has failed so far with their mobile apps is very simple - they try to force users to login" doesn't hold up when the most popular app in the world forces uses to log in.

> the claim [...] doesn't hold up when the most popular app in the world forces uses to log in.

Strongly disagree. Facebook (which I assume is what you mean by "the most popular app") was and still is _the_ social network. It's success on mobile has been driven by massive network effects. As such they can force users to jump through hoops which are in Facebook's favour because users want in so badly. That said Facebook doesn't get a free pass on device permissions, which is why they use gradual engagement in Messenger like this: http://installclub.tumblr.com/post/82319976281/double-opt-in...

But if you want to attack the leader, or simply grow your mobile user base, you don't get the same luxury or network effects Facebook has. Yahoo! doesn't have anything users want _so_ bad that they'll jump through hoops to get it.

But anyway - another a great example of an app "doing it right" is Airbnb - they let you browse properties without logging in - see http://firsttimeux.tumblr.com/post/83588089909/airbnb-ios-ap... for details - this gives people a chance to see what they're getting before going through the pain of signup. This is the model Yahoo! should follow as their apps, like Airbnb, are primarily about the content not the social element

Whatsapp doesn't. I'd say this was huge at driving its adoption.

Tying the username to the phone number was brilliant, and I don't know why others hadn't succeeded before with that approach, or why don't others copy it.

It is quite annoying when you want to switch phone numbers though (not a common use case, but at least in my country if you want to switch providers you have to switch phone numbers).

What's probably slowed adoption of that approach is too much "web thinking" in the app design process and too much "But what does Google / Facebook / Twitter do?"

In fact Twitter provides SMS based signup as a free service for app developers as part of Fabric - https://get.digits.com/

From what I recall, however Whatsapp won't let me dip my toe in the water on IOS without full access to all my Contacts. It got uninstalled pretty quick.

Yeah, an option to selectively add contacts would have been great but logically that would require an OS provided contact picker. Does either iOS or Android provide such a beast with an appropriate API? If not, you can't exactly blame Whatsapp for wanting a nice experience for users.

I have to agree that Yahoo trying to force everyone into a single login for every application killed opportunities to innovate. Every time I go back to Flickr it just looks so ossified that it can't move or progress at all. And that's sad because I have friends of mine on Second Life that still use Flickr (SL clients have Flickr integration for screen shots) and they're very good at playing with SL to make fantastic shots.

Ultimately, Yahoo is a company from another time that's long gone. Perhaps it's time for it to be laid to rest for all involved. Just a thought.

It's ironic, considering that Luke Wroblewski used to work for Yahoo! (Chief Design Architect (VP)) from 2007 to 2010.

Not a big fan of the products he's in charge of now (Blogger especially), but maybe they're pushing a redesign :)

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