Walled Gardens Don't Benefit

In the blog Marketing Shift, co-registration and user signups are noted as practices that can increase revenue and speed the road to profitability.

Co-Registration Benefits Online Media:

As I've said before, sites like YouTube and ABC.com should require free registration to get basic demographic information that could be used to justify higher CPM. But also they could use co-registration during this process to introduce customers to partners that could greatly increase their revenue. I doubt that many people would stop using these free services because of a one-time registration process that requires filling out a form.

Walled gardens do nothing but inhibit the use and sharing of content. The easier it is to access and syndicate the content, the more people will use the content. YouTube made it simple to add, play, find, and share content. No walls. No registration. Anonymous (well...at least to the level of logs! ;). There are absolutely no barriers to entry.

In addition, "basic demographic information that could be used to justify higher CPM" generates absolutely horrific user data. Amazing that most of the sites I belong to see me as a 69 year old male employed in agriculture. what incentive do I have to give you accurate or real information? None. Bug Me Not is a pretty popular service for a reason...

I aggree that co-registration can be a profitable for media sites, but to require blanket registrations is a horrible route. Make it valuable for the user to enter their correct information, ala social networking sites like MySpace, Tribe, Friendster, etc. That information will be more accurate and provide greater targeting than walled gardens put inplace only for the sake of higher CPMs.