The Verge

by Rita Nguyen

Have you guys heard? There’s a new tech site in town…well, not our town of course. The former Engadget guy launched The Verge this week. Aesthetically, I’m not a fan of the big boxes. It takes up so much room above the fold and really doesn’t prioritize content for me. But I guess that’s really subjective.

Product-wise, this is from the Engadget guy so I was expecting some pretty deep community hooks and was not disappointed on that front. However, they had a pretty horrific signing up process, even using FB connect. Side note, who still uses A)Yahoo! or B)OpenID and where are Twitter or Google logins?

After selecting FB Connect link, I still have to fill fields and fields and fields. And they don’t even tell me WHY I should go through the hassle. Then, I have to stop and wait for a confirmation email, during which time there’s no way browse the site or anything. After finally validating my account, I am told I am fully registered….then let’s me upload a photo. That’s it?!?!

For those die-hard Engadget folks out there who understand what they will eventually get, this is totally worth the hassle. For everyone else, I’m not sure that they will understand the value to jumping through all the hoops just to read some news articles.

Have you started using The Verge? How do you like the content?