My guess after seeing that: big, flashy buttons are a "better" way to lure kids in ... ? (If anybody remembers, kids sites also have the largest amount of trackers, so that would somehow nicely complement that "design strategy".)

Great approach to the Sign Up button! The humorous approach itself probably increases the conversion rate.

Depends on what you mean by conversion.

Interesting stats: over 50% of the people who sign up never click the "verify email" link in the welcome message they get. About 90% of the people who sign up are "born dead" meaning they are never seen again after the first few days.

It's difficult to inject your site into a person's habits, routine, and life. But once someone is hooked, they stay forever (or until a major life event like moving to college).

That site can deal with crappy signup numbers because the site still brings in over one million dollars every month from teenage girls buying "virtual items" for $2.50 to $9.99 each: http://vator.tv/news/2010-07-23-gaia-makes-1m-a-month-in-vir...

It started out as a joke then spiraled out of control. Based on half a dozen other homepage split tests, nothing significantly outperforms the Big Red Button.

Wow! That is one huge button...

Yep. I'm pretty sure it works too - they ran (and probably still do) massive ad campaigns at a scale where they would have to have tested a whole stack of variations.