I can convince you to register on my website and tell your friends about it

Looks interesting enough. I'll bite. I'll define some words since Pro didn't."I" - Term to describe our lovely instigator, Emmo (http://www.debate.org...)"You" - Term to refer to the contender, which would be myself (http://www.debate.org...) "Convince" - to persuade; cajole: (http://dictionary.reference.com...)"Persuade" - to prevail on (a person) to do something, as by advising or urging: (http://dictionary.reference.com...)I choose definition two as it fits best with the spirit of the debate. Pro has set this up to, evidently, attempt to persuade some random person to become a member of his site and refer his or her friends to said site. This means that simply showing that I should join the site is insufficient as the resolution demands a call-to-action: pro wins by me registering to his website. Short of that, he fails to uphold his resolution burden.I would also hope that there's no semantical play on the word "can" to entail logical possibility, since from the looks of it, that's not what Pro wants to be doing (unless this is just a really well-laid trap, in which case props). But if he does, I'm prepared to defend against such.To be entirely fair to my opponent, I will give the following promises on my word as a debater and as an ethical person:1. I will be honest about account creation. That means if he does actually convince me to create an account, I will create an account and concede the debate. I will not simply say "I'm not convinced" just for the free win. 2. I will be honest about the circumstances surrounding what could motivate me to join the site or not. It's inherently unfair if the only chance of a fair and reasonable debate relies on me giving honest information and I supply him with false information. So with that, I'll begin with a brief explanation of who I am so that pro may attempt to persuade me to create an account.I'm a 19 year old college student. I go to a community college. I also hold a part time job at a grocery store as a produce clerk (that pays suprisingly well). My goal from education currently is to obtain a Bachelors degree in Communications and apply for teaching certification so that I may become a speech and debate coach for high school students. My main interests are debating (herp derp), philosophy, video games, and writing. I'm mostly introverted, but I'm capable of being extroverted if the situation calls for it (I would just rather not). Any other information that my opponent would like to know (provided it's not too personal; it's the internet after all) is available upon his request (either in round or in the comments, not picky). With that, I'll respond to his initial points before raising a few points of my own.Free To Sign-Up:A free to sign up site in itself is not compelling. If a site being free to sign up were, in and of itself, a compelling reason to sign up for the site, my profile would be plastered across the internet. Rather it's the content of the site and how it appeals to the user compared to the time trade-off that the user could be doing other such things. DDO is a free to sign-up for website, but that in itself was not what convinced me to join the site. Motivation:There's a few flaws within this argument:First is that one would need the internet to motivate themselves. I have my family around me who encourage me to continously apply myself to my studies. I have friends who push me to try my best at everything that I do. There's my own personal drive to see myself succeed. Outside of that, there's not really much use for a website to motivate me: there are other resources around me that motivate me without having to do any kind of sign-up.Second is that there are more traditional alternatives if a website were needed to be used for motivation than to sign-up for Pro's site. I could simply take a few seconds to google motivational quotes to push me to succeed. While five minutes to sign-up isn't too arduous of a task, five minutes is eons compared to moments. Third is that you engaging me isn't an advantage over other websites. If it's an advantage at all, which I'm uncertain that it is, it's not a very compelling advantage simply because a) most, if not all, websites advertise their site as well. This debate could be just another, if a bit more personal, advertisement for your site (which it most certainly is), and b) you engaging me about your site doesn't really affect the site overall. The site will, most likely, go on with or without me as a user registered for the site, so engaging me about it doesn't really have any kind of positive influence on the site's outlook. With that being said, I'll move onto my own points from here.Website? What website?To begin with, it's really, really complicated to persuade someone to join a site that they have no knowledge of. You could spend days explaining to me the splendors I would experience if only I registered for your website, but none of that would really ever matter if I never see your site. This makes it incredibly perplexing since Pro fails to give me any way to find his site: there's no link to the website, no site name for me to find, not even a reference to what the site may be for me to google and hunt down. Without being able to actually see the site, it's kind of hard for me to see if it's a site I would be interested in joining. Audience Targeting = Failure From reading my opponent's opening statement (in particular "where we inspire Africans ... to be proud of being an African"), the website seems like a wash for me. Personally I'm white myself, I don't identify as African in any way. Making me be proud of something that I'm not seems rather pointless to me, not to mention that "being proud of being an African" is a rather value statement and I'm not entirely sure what you mean by that. But even if it wasn't me who accepted, the odds against this site applying naturally is rather low. Whites dominate the site demographically at 62% of all users (http://www.debate.org...), whereas African/African-American users only comprise about 8%. This puts the odds at the site being targeted at the correct potential user as rather low. What do you even do?The way that pro presents his site in his opening round is also perplexing. I'm left without much of a clue as to what his site actually sets out to accomplish and how it could be a benefit to my life to use. I see statements ranging from "Simply put my business model is an online mall ... for African companies" , which leaves me really confused as to where I fit into the grand scheme of things, to statements like "where we inspire Africans and probably anyone else who believes in what we believe ... to be proud of themselves" , which seems not even remotely similar to the previous statement of what the site it supposed to be. Conclusion:I have yet to be convinced to create an account (not to mention I don't even know what website I would be creating an account for yet xD). As such, the resolution is negated. Back over to Pro!