And here’s an example. I made a site a while ago where every user can create a virtual “wall” and others can post post-it notes all over it with messages. The idea was pretty new at that time (3 years ago +) but I noticed that after advertising the idea on some forums, the site didn’t get many views. It was a week after launch and the user base was still below 50. So I decided that since the site doesn’t share any personal information (it’s only the nickname, no names etc) to drop the email and overall limit the registration to just nickname, password and the register button. So the process of making a wall takes 4 clicks (password repeat being the 3rd).
What happened then ? Well the charts skyrocketed! After another week there was way over a 1000 unique registered users and they were growing fast. After a month the site reached 100,000 unique visitors a day and the registrations were somewhat around 80,000 users. Just because in most cases people DON’T want to confirm anything, or take STEPS to register anywhere. The simpler it is the better, and you can still get the emails by adding them AFTER they register and have a fair amount of time on site already. They’re more likely to add their email (in case they forget the password for example) at that point, than with the registration.
The emails were still about 1 for every 4 people, so 25%, but imagine what would happen if the email verification and a full registration weren’t removed. Sure it’d be 100% emails instead of 25%, but with A LOT less people registered the numbers are still bigger with the 25%. So keep that in mind – the simpler the user input the more successful the viral!