For a web application that needs to store user-specific information -- for example, your favorite bookmarks -- the site could automatically create an "account" for each new user the first time they access it, identified only by a unique cookie saved. Later, if they wanted to, users could associate that unique value with a username and password to be able to use the site from other browsers and machines.

That way no registration or other nonsense would be required to start using the site. That might mean more people would try it.

For "Oops, I accidentally wasn't logged in" situations, the site could also allow merging your transient cookie-based account with an existing account, provided you know the username and password of the latter.

What do the other Anonymouses on the internet think of this idea? Personally, I'd be much more likely to use del.icio.us, Digg, etc. -- or at least try them -- if they worked this way. (I haven't used any Web 2.0 type sites.)

Most people are lazy, they won't register at all if it works right out of the box. Then they complain when they lose all their transient data because their tech-savvy college kid decides to clear the cache.

Also, the one time you need the functionality provided by a registered account (remote access to your local bookmarks from another computer) is the one time you can't get to your local data anyway.

I think it's better the way things are...

yeah, but it would like, prominently say "hey dude, you should register so you don't lose your data." i think people would do that.

I like this idea. It would save me needing to mess about registering accounts at sites I mean to use once and exactly once and never return to (and save the site owner a few hundred bytes of database space once the transient data expires).

Whoops, meant to bump.