One of the details that can be tough to keep track of with a large or fast-moving website is language consistency. Of course, to be consistent, you need to decide what to use. I did an audit of the most popular English-language sites (as determined by Alexa and Compete), to see how three key phrases were being used. These were:

Login/Log In/Sign in - The action of authorizing your account.
My/Your - My Movies, Your Account, etc.
Join/Sign Up/Register/Create - Creating a new account.

Here is the raw data, see below for some analysis.

* Inconsistent

“My” is the clear winner over “Your”, with 27 mys, 3 yours, and 2 that avoid using possessive pronouns.

“Login” takes the edge over “Sign In”, 20-14. “Sign In”, however, seems to be more popular with the biggest of the big sites, like Yahoo, Microsoft’s sites, and Google. I’d say this is a tossup, and I have a feeling that in a few years signup with come to dominate. Of those using login, 13 use “login”, and 7 use “log in”, with the space.

There’s a plurality of choices for sign up, with “sign up” being used on 12 sites. 7 used join, 7 used register, 6 used create (an account), 1 used start, and 1 used enroll. This is not an independent choice, however, as “sign up” is often seen where “log in” is used, and sites that use “sign in” use something like “register”. AOL, Microsoft, and Yahoo use “sign in/sign up”. I suspect that some people think using such similar phrases would be confusing, and I agree, despite the appeal of the general consistency.

My preference is to use “my, “log in”, and “sign up”. “Join” seems ambiguous, “register” seems bureaucratic and expensive, while “create an account” just feels a little dorky.

Dishonorable Mention: The Apple Store, supposed paragon of usability and attention to detail, is the worst offender on this list in terms of mixing and matching the terms, often on the same page. They also fail miserably on one major point, there’s no logout button!

Every group of friends develops a very localized parlance, usually drawn from movies they’ve all enjoyed or memorable events. My group of college friends was lucky enough to include someone who had inherited a dominant curator gene, Keith Tyler. This is well-evidenced by his contributions to Wikipedia, but also by his entering into the historical record a fairly exhaustive list of rubbonics, complete with phonetics, that would be useful in deciphering our conversations of the day.

Sometimes, a term or phrase has the potential to break out of the group and escape to the community and beyond, and I’m going to nominate one to do just that, or at least get it into Google. This term was apparently born after the rubbonics were codified, and I can’t remember the date, but I do remember the circumstances.

We went to the Cheri Theater (now the site of the Summer Shack and King’s bowling), one chilly Boston night. On the way back, Kilby proclaimed “this way’s faster” and promptly crossed the street. We declined to follow and proceed on our way as Kilby marched down the other side of the street. At the next intersection, he crossed back to our side of the street, but was there before us. “How?,” you ask. The answer is simple, he walked faster. This was not the first time he had performed such a feat, but it was then that the phrase “Kilby shortcut” was coined.

Kil·by short·cut

noun (kĭl’bē shôrt’kŭt’)

A path between two points which is longer than other obvious choices, but the extended length is mitigated by travelling faster.

An ironic footnote is that Kilby doesn’t drive, and never has, yet somehow is the best navigator I’ve seen when it comes to exploring cities or unfamiliary territory. Except, of course, when he says “this way’s faster”…

I’ve spent most of my career working with and for large companies and clients. I watched the 90’s .com boom mostly from the outside, and only recently got involved with the startup ecosystem. So far, I’m finding it exciting and appealing, but there’s one aspect that flat-out confuses me.

Alexa is, in brief, spyware. It’s not sketchy like Gator or any of the other horrible things nerds have been cleaning off their mom’s computers for years, but it basically tells a server which websites you visit. In return for this, you can view some meta-information about the site you’re on, find related sites, etc. It’s been around for a while, and is now part of Amazon’s otherwise benevolent kingdom.

I have never, ever seen anyone use it. Anyone who is tech-savvy with a modicum of concern for privacy wouldn’t even think about installing it. I’ve even experimentally explained it to some non-techy people in neutral terms, and gotten negative responses.

The thing that confuses me is that it seems to be practically gospel in the startup/VC community, especially those who sit in the bleachers and offer commentary about the sector. This is largely due to the fact that it’s the only way to compare traffic between two sites, but its results are more than inaccurate, they are misleading, and dangerous.

I have available to me (not shareable, sorry) the traffic information for two sites. Site A has a mainstream audience and no revenue. Site B has a somewhat more technically-oriented audience, and is barely profitable. Site B gets twice as many visitors (and far more traffic) as Site A. Site A’s metrics on Alexa are twice that of Site B. I don’t even think a margin of error this vast has a name in statistics.

So I guess what I’m trying to say here is don’t use Alexa “until something better comes along” or “just for another viewpoint”. Just don’t use it at all.