Account verification by email - pros and cons

Question

If this question has already been asked, please comment so I can remove it.

I'm aware of the advantages of email verification, especially in regard to spamming (which could easily kill me since most of the functionality is in posting comments).

I'm contemplating the removal of email account verification for the application I'm currently building. This is for numerous reasons:

• I've noticed other apps/websites simply don't implement it.
• It's far more user friendly then to skew the user over to their email.
• Since the application is moderate in scale and functionality, revisits are short-lived, some users may be inquisitive about it as to sign up, but some might feel it's an overkill to actually go through email verification.
• App is not celebrated as to compel visitors to take effort, sign up and verify.

I know I'm getting into the gust of it, and while I'm writing this visitors could've verified their account for the gazillionth time; however, would you agree that for some moderately scaled applications an account verification might deter a casual visitor?

What measures do you personally prefer to undertake?

Answer 1

Why not use some form of federated ID like OpenID and such?

Answer 2

Verification is good if you plan to send email to them on a regular basis. Otherwise if it's just a casual site, you will probably need to offer something compelling to get them to register and provide you a valid email address.

Do you have something compelling?