I’m surfing around a bit looking for social networks to join and a common theme is really bugging me. Many of these sites hide their content.

What I mean by “hide” is that you have to be a member to get to the actual content.

Because I can’t see the content I don’t know if I want to be a member. I do know I won’t sign up for anything unless you show me the goods first… or at least a sample.

Holding viewers hostage to your membership policy is bad form. It frustrates the viewer. And that violates the first rule of usability: never frustrate the viewer. Why? Because they leave with a bitter taste and hold a resentment to how your site wasted their time. People that get really upset may write a blog post about it.

Moving past my ego for a minute, consider the most popular social sites online and what they have in common. Sites like Digg, reddit, del.icio.us and sphinn are huge because the viewer can see what they are getting up front. Then if it appeals to them they can join to post their own content.

Notice the distinction? Reading is free, adding requires accountability in the form of a free membership. Once you have a good track record you can play with this a bit by adding a premium content section, neat tools, enhanced options or whatever and charge for those things.

If I can’t see what your site has to offer, I have to move on to someone else that is willing to meet that small need.

And why do you want me to sign up soooooo bad? Is it because your site does not have a very big membership pool and you are trying to hide that, perhaps? Or to collect my email address to spam me? When I can’t see the value at the beginning I naturally get suspicious.

And you probably have a ton of useless contact information from fake users who were also frustrated but had enough time on their hands to push something through. Unqualified leads are expensive, even online.

Finally, you are also blocking a major source of free traffic when you hide your content behind a password. If search engines like Google, Yahoo and Live/MSN can’t see your content, you don’t get to rank for it. A whole lot of qualified leads are missed in an attempt to secure a large, useless collection of email addresses.

How sad.

I suppose that since I am talking about membership, I should point out that this site offers a free membership for those who are interested. Benefits include a custom avatar for your comments, “dofollowed” comments links, discounts on advertising and the ability to honestly say with pride that you are a 14th Colony Member. But no worries, even without a membership you can still read my little rants free of charge.

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