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Comment by jm3 | Hacker News Reader

really? creating a twitter account takes about 15 seconds. if you're not one of the 150 million people with a Twitter account, then why not just be patient? i'm sure kyle will get around to supporting other login methods eventually.

i believe you're genuinely trying to be helpful with your suggestions, but comments like this reminds me of the vocal 0.1% of users who exercise troublesome preferences like disabling javascript, or installing ad-blocking plugins that break half the web, (which is fine!), but then complain that their (pathological) preferences prohibit them from enjoying the experience (which is not so helpful).

feedback like, "i can't be bothered to log in to give you feedback because i don't like your login" isn't great feedback. it might even be viewed as a sign to you that you're not the intended user. yet.

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I wasn't aware not having a Twitter account was considered pathological in our Web 2.0 world.

Why do I need to sign up for a microblogging platform to use a completely unrelated calendar app???

Anyway, my comments about reducing friction aren't based on my own preferences, they're based on dozens of multivariate split tests I have conducted across many thousand unique visitors.

Every single time, forcing the user to sign up, login, enter their email or anything of the sort before getting to use the site SIGNIFICANTLY decreases engagement, time on site, conversions, and pretty much every other metric you should care about.

The "signup friction" argument's a straw men; no sane startup seeks to add friction to the signup process. the bogus (implied) assertion in the comment is that requiring a Twitter account to use a new web app in beta is overly restrictive / cumbersome.

The only way that would make sense is if beta testers don't have Twitter accounts, since OAuthing with an existing account reduces friction. Twitter's been around for four years and seems fairly well established among early adopters like HN readers, so counting on a critical mass of beta testers to have Twitter accounts hardly seems a stretch, even if those users aren't very active tweeters.

i for one was very glad not to need to enter an email address, pick a login name, etc; the oauth process handled that for me. ymmv

I think the suggestion was to not require a form of authentication (email or twitter) first. Instead, let the potential user "test drive" the app and then when they are a little invested prompt for a signup of some kind.

One-click registrations are really an innovative way to get people to sign up and try something. Normally you have to fill out an arduous form and decipher captchas. Services like facebook connect, twitter and Open ID Connect are much better from an UX standpoint(imho).

I was also pleasantly surprised when my login information was handled automatically as well.

> "i can't be bothered to log in to give you feedback because i don't like your login"

Eh? I wanted to try this product out, but I don't have a Twitter account. In fact, I deleted it a few months ago. Now I have to create a new account just to use a (admittedly sorely needed) Seinfeld calendar? No thanks, I'll just use Vim and a text file.

I realize Streak.ly is a free application, so I have no right to complain. What bothered me about your comment was the assumption that everyone on the Internet should have a Twitter account.

> "i'm sure kyle will get around to supporting other login methods eventually."

I bet he will. But by the time he has a simpler login set up, people would have forgotten about Streak.ly altogether. The average Internet user (read: me) is a fickle being.

it's not just signing-in using twitter, from a general public's perspective, it's being unclear about how the service will interact with twitter. will you service start tweeting my streaks ("50 days without sex!"), will it start inviting my friends to join? will start inserting self-promotional tweets? maybe it can't but will the public at-large understand that? and do i want twitter to know when i'm signing into your service?

honestly, i'd prefer to have my own sign-in for your service and i think many other people would, too.

comments like yours remind me of the 0.1% of lazy programmers who would rather tell users that they're pathological than spend the day it would take to implement and test a simple user registration and sign-in system for people who would prefer that over using twitter sign-in. i, personally, will not be a customer of your service because of your customer service! :-)

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