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2013

  • 1 min read

[GEEKY] Social login buttons considered harmful

You probably don't know what a social login button is so forgive this bit of geekyness. I am sure you've seen them: "login with facebook or twitter?" If an app or a site wants to "save you the trouble" of registering a username and password, they may "make your life easier" by allowing you to register using your facebook or twitter password. Conventional wisdom in the world of apps has been that this is a user requirement, and plus beneficial to the business as well. Here's an interesting article that refutes that belief, at least in certain significant scenarios.

Social Login Buttons Aren't Worth It | MailChimp Email Marketing Blog:

I was, um, not super happy to get that email. I presented my data, and made the case for keeping the buttons, but Ben wasn't moved. Even though the social login buttons were bound for the grave, I did a little extra analytics footwork to see just how many people were clicking the social login buttons. I was shocked to see that just 3.4% of the people that visited the login page actually used Facebook or Twitter to log in. So what caused the huge drop in login failures then?

Yea

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Is a startup for you?

I always thought that startups are over glamorized. They are not for everyone. On the other hand, some people also over stress about the 'risk' of joining a startup, which I don't by either. Check out: Alex Payne -- Letter To A Young Programmer Considering A Startup:

Maybe a startup is the best way to meet a goal, and maybe it isn't. If the goal of the young man described above is to run a business - any business! - then perhaps a startup is indeed his best path forward. For others, though, I often wonder if they're fitting their goals into the format of a startup because it's an approach that's lauded, admired, and easily understood (if not easily accomplished).

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Learn to make something

This bit of advice rings very true to me. Read the whole article, but here's a tasty bit.

@andrewchen: New essays for 06/03/2013:

1) Learn to make something. Anything. First and foremost, I think it's important to learn to make something. Anything. It could be an app, blog, table, YouTube channel, video tutorial, or anything else. Then study the people who have become successful enough to support themselves in this craft, and study them, copy them, stalk them, and meet them.

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Politics and the soul

An interesting post from my pal Peter Miller about how we all view the world through our own biases and it's hard to disentangle those from what might feel like clear eyed reasoning. (See Peter, I summarized your article in one sentence 🙂

Politics and the Soul | ZeitgeistSurfer:

Every thoughtful conservative believes that liberals see the world through a distorting lens whose inner structure has been formed by their desire for a better, fairer, more just, more equal, more peaceful, less polluted world. (Or perhaps it's not that at all, but simply envy and the lust for revenge on those who have won life's lottery.) Most conservatives believe that liberals do not fundamentally understand human nature. "Out of the crooked timber of humanity no straight thing was ever made" as Kant said. As we accumulate experience we encounter a nearly infinite variety of human types. Yet they all share a common core of instinct, rough desire, nobility and/or savagery.

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Teach ’em GIT

I don't agree that it's a "major problem for computer science" - by a long shot. But still it is odd that often Computer Science students are not exposed to 'modern' source control management systems or version management systems, or maybe even "any" SCM at all.

Version Control and Higher Education -- What I Learned Building… -- Medium:

We are not doing students any favors by ignoring software like Git at the university level. It's a major problem for computer science, information technology and design students to not--at the very least--be exposed to some form of version control or source code management during their tenure at school.

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Audacious startups

I remember when this project was first announced and 'PR'd. It's just another good reminder about the unpredictability of these world-changing projects. Sad but interesting:

Electric car company Better Place shuts down after burning through $850M | VentureBeat:

Better Place is the electric car company that hoped to change the world with its ambitious battery-swapping stations. But today it said it's shutting down. The closure brings to an end arguably the most audacious "clean tech" company ever attempted.

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Fantastic Billy Joel Interview

If you are, or ever were, a Billy Joel Fan you will really like this interview. Fascinating to read what seem to be the reasonably honest thoughts and feelings of a Rock Star!

Billy Joel on Not Working and Not Giving Up Drinking - NYTimes.com:

So he doesn't write anymore, not pop songs anyway. Instead he goes about his relatively ordinary life in plain sight in a cedar shake house in the middle of Sag Harbor village. He has a few of his vintage motorcycles in the garage, and his boat slip is within walking distance. He is seemingly never alone, spending his time in the company of his two pugs or his live-in girlfriend of three years, Alexis Roderick, a former Morgan Stanley risk officer (who he probably wishes had been alongside him in the 1970s to assess his first record deal). What he lacks in output, he more than makes up for in opinions -- about his legacy, his mistakes, a rock-star life lived hard and the heroes and villains he met along the way. If the new music of many of his contemporaries is any measure, prolificness is an overrated quality. Once a pop genius, always a pop genius. We ought to know by now.