Risk Complete Failure

One of the questions that you face as a developer when implementing Google+ Sign-In (or any login method) is how to present the options to the user. Having reviewed a pretty large number of apps with sign-in, I thought it might be helpful to break down the four main approaches for displaying the buttons that I've seen, and some thoughts on the costs and benefits of them. A couple of points before we get into that: It's worth remembering that the best situation is when the user does not have to take any action at all. That's the idea behind cross platform single sign on and over-the-air installs. It's also why it is worth taking the time to make sure users stay signed-in after an app upgrade or releasing a new version of a website.Secondly, unless there are solid reasons not to, sign-in should always be paired with sign-up. Particularly on mobile devices this can be a missed opportunity where users are expected register on the web first. That said, in this post I want t…

I was reminded of one of my pet social peeves as part of a conversation with one of the, astonishingly smart, Google interns. One of the most challenging aspects of social networks is that, broadly, people within companies don't really know what "doing a good job" looks like. Depending on the organisation, social media can be part of marketing, PR, customer service, a specialised department, even IT. The aim of these departments is often mis-matched with the potential or the audience the brand has across their social media, so it is difficult to create effective performance measures.

Most well managed teams create measurable goals - increase X number by Y percent and so on. However, when you chuck something as mutable as social systems into the balance it is difficult to avoid putting in numbers that qualify as vanity metrics, rather than useful data.

Vanity metrics is a term from the world of lean start-ups, and refers to numbers that people quote because it makes them …