Yasni: Yet Another People Search Engine? - Getting Registered
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I tried a search or two without registering and discovered, much to my dismay, that Yasni returned results in German, even though I was supposedly using the US version of the site. Since it now shows in English for the US version regardless of whether someone is logged in, this should no longer be an issue. At the time of writing this article, however, I had to register – and that's a bit of a minus right there. Web users like free services, and would rather use many of those services, such as search, without having to register or log in.
To judge from the way the site behaved and the words on the links, registering involves creating a profile. Maybe it's just me, but I tend to think of those as two separate acts. Would it have made more sense to use the word “Register” and let users register with minimal information, then complete their profile later? Well, as it turns out, Yasni does just that; let's check out the process.
Clicking on the “Create Profile” link at the top of the home page pops up a box to get the ball rolling. Here's a screen shot:
So I need to put in my full name (first and last), an email address, and a password. I also need to read the Terms of Use and the Privacy Statement, or at least check both boxes. Not surprisingly, the Terms of Use forbid aliases; you have to be truthful about your identity. There are other important items in there as well, and I'd recommend actually reading the Terms of Use before signing up; they're not the simplest ones I've ever seen, but I've read much worse. It took me about six minutes to read it.
Once I clicked the link, a pop-up box appeared to inform me that my Yasni profile was saved successfully and a confirmation email had been sent. Clicking on the link in the email would make the profile accessible. Furthermore, the message suggested that I ask friends to confirm my profile – to increase my credibility and raise my VIP rank, whatever that was. It wasn't mentioned in the Help section (which was set up like a frequently asked questions page). I couldn't log in to use the site until I'd received my confirmation email.
Clicking on the link in the confirmation email took me to Yasni's web site, and displayed a pop-up box to let me log in. Once I logged in, I flipped the flag to in the drop-down to US (it had flipped to German after I logged in), and at last I saw a page entirely in English!
I know, you can't see too much. Don't worry, I'll be going over each area of the web site and providing you with plenty of screen shots cropped to highlight particular sections, so you can see what's going on. Right now I'm running out of space, however, so in the next section I'll give you a summary, with more to come in the second part next week.
Next: Summary of Services >>
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