codegent is a full service web development new media agency, based in clapham, london, uk, that delivers well-designed content managed sites, microsites and flash games supported by robust technology and integrated marketing solutions including search engine optimisation, pay-per-click and html email.
Is user verification an essential part of your business?
Many websites rely on their users' identity to be verified in order to create trust, especially when it comes to the exchange of money or even to ensure physical safety.
If you follow any of the major tech blogs you will have heard about the nightmares that Airbnb, the highly valued online marketplace for peer-to-peer travelling, have had recently. Airbnb enables people to earn money by renting out extra space, and offers travellers a viable alternative to hotels and hostels. However, after one blogger’s flat in San Francisco was ransacked by a “guest” concerns over safety and security were raised by the community.
Airbnb have rapidly added a load of new security features to their platform, including our very own Webcam Snapper app to help validate user identity.
Snapper is just one ingredient though so I thought it would be interesting to list the forms of verification they are using to build up a comprehensive user trust profile.
Webcam Photos
This is ideal for helping you build trust that your users are who they say they are. A webcam photo taken whilst the user is logged into their account is far more likely to be authentic. Photos can also be date stamped and you can also request the user holds up an ID cards, driving licenses or passport to add further proof.
Validating a Phone Number
Entering your mobile number and being sent a code automatically via SMS to input is pretty simple but very effective. Of course not all mobile numbers lead to trackable contracted folks but having a verified contact number is helpful.
Connecting your Social Network Profiles
Over the past couple of years we have seen the rise of social logins where users can create accounts on websites and apps by authorising facebook, Google, Twitter, LinkedIn etc. to act on their behalf. Originally this was designed for convenience and end user security. However this use case is all about extending the digital footprint of a person for trust verification purposes. LinkedIn is an especially interesting use case here as an account on this platform very much places the user profile in a real life context.
User on User Reviews
The power of comments from total strangers has meant big business for the likes of Amazon, Apple, eBay and Trip Advisor and this is no different. Over time the web has built up a degree of community, camaraderie and social responsibility amongst total strangers with a unified goal. The principle being that if we collectively share our thoughts and experiences we can all benefit from better products and services, as well as avoiding disasters!
Taken one by one none of the above (sadly even Snapper) can realistically say they crack the issue of online trust. However as a collective they build a compelling picture of a person that would be very hard to fake. Dodgy users are clearly not going to try and follow these steps which will weed them out as potential people to avoid.
In that regard Airbnb can say with some conviction that home owners enter into deals at their own risk. The vast majority of good apples won’t have any issues with that.
Brizzly is a popular third-party Twitter & Facebook interface, built by Thing Labs, that launched in 2009. We caught up with them at the recent Chirp Twitter conference in San Francisco and demoed our Webcam Snapper application - which they loved! (a demo of the Snapper in our Twitbooth website is in the video above)
So without further ado they bought the widget and integrated it straight into Brizzly. So far it has proved to be a hit with the users as well.
This is the second large platform we have integrated Snapper with after White Label Dating in Autumn 2009. We are also talking to the major Twitter photo sharing websites as well so stay posted for more updates soon!
Exciting times here at Codegent, we've just completed and launched a new website for Nickelodeon.
Nickelodeon presented us with an interesting challenge, they needed a website that could showcase their on-air summer content. This content consisted of (amongst other things) a competition to find SpongeBob Square Pants' biggest fan. Here's an example of one of our favourite entries so far. The other main part of the site was TEENick, a magazine style show aimed at teenage girls.
The challenge came in finding a way to create a cohesive site that would encourage the 2 different audiences to engage and interact with these seemingly disparate elements.
We wanted to incentivise people to travel through to the different parts of the site so we designed 5 SpongeBob cards that we 'hid' on various pages. When a user found a card they could click on it and were then given the option to download and print the card. 4 of the 5 cards incorporated a marker which, when printed and held up to a webcam, would display a 2D message from a character from SpongeBob. Finding the fifth card unlocked an augmented reality, 3D SpongeBob which the user could interact with by pressing their space bar. You can view a demo of the SpongeBob AR here:
These cards helped us to tie the site together and to generate page impressions, however we didn't want to incentivise people to travel through the site if we couldn't be sure that they were engaging with the content, so we constructed a points system that rewarded good behaviour, such as commenting, rating entries, entering the competition etc. Points are accumulated during the visit and when you reach certain milestones you unlock Nickelodeon 'goodies'.
We also wanted the user to feel a bond with the site which is why we added a badge creator. This allows users to create a badge with their unique username and design, this badge is displayed whenever they leave comment on an article. Here's an example of the badges in action.
The competition has had hundreds of entries and from the stats we've got so far, page impressions and time spent on site is looking good. The augmented reality aspect has had great feedback in terms of how it looks but also how it gives the user something new, exciting and valuable in exchange for their time and attention.
