When you arrive at a site that asks you to register for an account before you can access certain content or functionality, does that drive you away?

A recent research report shows that a site that requires users to register does just that, drives users away. On the flipside, the same report shows that about half of all users are attracted by personalization capabilities on a site.

So, on the one hand, we don’t want to register but, on the other, we want personalization.

How can you deal with that in a way that finds a balance between the two? Perhaps social login is the answer.

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Facebook claims to have Twitter “in the rear-view mirror,” but of course the company is keeping a close eye on what’s happening with Twitter. The recent inclusion of Twitter-style tagging with the @-symbol in Facebook certainly seems more than a little inspired by Twitter.

There is one thing we find a wee bit strange, though. Although we love Twitter and the service is clearly growing like crazy, the way people are talking about Twitter and Facebook often makes it sound like Twitter may overtake Facebook any day now. Those people need to realize how big Facebook really is.

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