spaces.msn.com Suggestion Part Deux
I'd love to have a chat with the marketing gurus who decided that in order to post a comment to a blog you must have a passport account
"If we force everyone to have passport we will get lots more traffic--more traffice=more ad revenue. It's a win win"
Uh, one sec skippy. I think you may be overlooking something. Now this is just my opinion, but I believe spaces was targeted at the masses and not the technology oriented folks. The people who already have hotmail or sign up for a spaces account will already have a passport so no big deal right? Wrong! So far I've had no less than six people respond to me via email that they couldn't figure out how to post a comment. What do all these people have in common? You guessed it. They don't use hotmail and they don't have a passport account. Nor are they likely to get one. In fact, they are even less likely to get one now, because they now feel like they are being strong armed into signing up just to participate in the new communication medium. Most don't really see the value of being able to post a comment as significant enough to bother signing up.
Now here is why I think MS got it wrong. The compelling nature of a blog is that it allows for a free form communication that goes both ways. It is static and timeless in essense because all parties don't have to be online at the same time. By intruding into the processes and forcing everyone who wants to participate to have a passport MS has effectively shut out millions of people. Many of these people would probably like to have a blog, but a lot are not going to bother simply because while they may be willing to get a passport it means that every other person that they would like to participate in their blog has to have one too. That is a daunting proposition. Why force everyone to have a passport? The people you covet are the very people you are turning away from the medium.
My suggestion to MS: Open up the comments to anyone who wants. Yes you are going to get comment spam and yes that sucks. But requiring a passport account isn't the right answer. People are used to dealing with spam, they aren't necessarily used to dealing with a passport account
Of course that is just my opinion. What the hell do I know. I have a passport account