Ask YC: First and Last Name + Username vs only Username?

Re:Ask YC: First and Last Name + Username vs only Username? by philh on Sunday July 06, 2008 @02:55PM (#237938)

If you really need someone's full name for them to use the service, it's probably best to put it directly on the sign-up process. If not, make it optional to add after registering.

You may want to dispose of usernames entirely, and use their email as a unique identifier. That ought to be easier for people who aren't used to the concept of usernames.

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Re:Ask YC: First and Last Name + Username vs only Username? by Jax on Sunday July 06, 2008 @04:48PM (#238043)

Hi philh!

Bug report of your thought:

The second option you mentioned - about disposing off usernames and using email addresses as unique identifiers - is not feasible in glen's case, because he intends to use the unique identifer as a part of the url.

@glen: collect the first name and last name only if u need them. If you just want to address your users then, you can just do "Hi [username], what's up? Bla... Bla... [some-username] has sent you a message..."

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Re:Ask YC: First and Last Name + Username vs only Username? by glen on Sunday July 06, 2008 @03:06PM (#237951)

Thanks. Yes, we will need their full name. We did talk about using their email as a unique identifier, but we need to have something for their URL - like: www.nixty.com/philh

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Re:Ask YC: First and Last Name + Username vs only Username? by falsestprophet on Sunday July 06, 2008 @08:47PM (#238158)

That was my thought as well for the last application I built, but no one is going to care to find their data by url. Just use a random key to form the url: okay.com/lekaro.

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