Along those lines, is a cross-login of any kind really ever a filter for anything? Seems like it's generally more either a huge hassle or something to make seamless login much easier for people who don't care about using their facebook login for everything.
Shouldn't the content/workflow/UX of your site be what attracts certain kinds of users and disincentivizes others?
You make a very good point about content! Its true, that the content on the platform will determine whether the users get value from it. The caveat missing from your model is there are different types of users, with different, often opposing agendas, who might impact that UX.
Suppose for instance, we have a website where the content is generally great tech opportunities with cool companies.
Who's interested in that?
Engineers interested in job discovery might be and that is precisely our target audience. However, there are others who are also interested in that sort of information - recruiters, for instance, looking for leads. Now this is not the community we are trying to serve. In fact, we know that this demographic has the potential to seriously damage the UX of the employers of the others side of the platform (imagine if you signed up as a hiring manager to Workshape and it was advertised as direct employers only - and all you got in return was recruiters hassling you to give them a mandate to recruit for you...). So, we put into place mechanisms which firstly signal who our audience is, and secondly create friction to get in.
We understand that this is at some cost to rapid scale. But we don't value a platform which scales quickly, then equally quickly becomes toxic with the effluent of people who shouldn't be there.
Hope that makes sense! Keep the questions coming - feedback is welcome and necessary.
We know Github isn't a secure gate, but we also know that it is at least a gate - an extra admin layer to go through.
The analogy I'd use is similar to street crime. Your bike isn't secure because you put a D-lock on it. You're just making a little bit harder for the criminal to get it. A motivated bike thief? Yeah, he'll get your bike! But your casual criminal might just pass on rather than invest the time.
What we do want to avoid is to become a LinkedIn-like open platform, where recruiter parasitization is endemic. Our plan for a high signal, low noise platform is absolutely dependent on being agency free
Hope that answers your question. Keep them coming - all thoughts welcome!
Benjammer|11 years ago
Shouldn't the content/workflow/UX of your site be what attracts certain kinds of users and disincentivizes others?
hunglee2|11 years ago
You make a very good point about content! Its true, that the content on the platform will determine whether the users get value from it. The caveat missing from your model is there are different types of users, with different, often opposing agendas, who might impact that UX.
Suppose for instance, we have a website where the content is generally great tech opportunities with cool companies.
Who's interested in that?
Engineers interested in job discovery might be and that is precisely our target audience. However, there are others who are also interested in that sort of information - recruiters, for instance, looking for leads. Now this is not the community we are trying to serve. In fact, we know that this demographic has the potential to seriously damage the UX of the employers of the others side of the platform (imagine if you signed up as a hiring manager to Workshape and it was advertised as direct employers only - and all you got in return was recruiters hassling you to give them a mandate to recruit for you...). So, we put into place mechanisms which firstly signal who our audience is, and secondly create friction to get in.
We understand that this is at some cost to rapid scale. But we don't value a platform which scales quickly, then equally quickly becomes toxic with the effluent of people who shouldn't be there.
Hope that makes sense! Keep the questions coming - feedback is welcome and necessary.
Hung
hunglee2|11 years ago
We know Github isn't a secure gate, but we also know that it is at least a gate - an extra admin layer to go through.
The analogy I'd use is similar to street crime. Your bike isn't secure because you put a D-lock on it. You're just making a little bit harder for the criminal to get it. A motivated bike thief? Yeah, he'll get your bike! But your casual criminal might just pass on rather than invest the time.
What we do want to avoid is to become a LinkedIn-like open platform, where recruiter parasitization is endemic. Our plan for a high signal, low noise platform is absolutely dependent on being agency free
Hope that answers your question. Keep them coming - all thoughts welcome!
Hung