I learned the progress bar element from eZine Articles. Watching my article never move but always sitting at 33% made me come back to the site day after day.

I learned the progress bar element from eZine Articles. Watching my article never move but always sitting at 33% made me come back to the site day after day. I really had no intention of writing more articles. I was already there though, so, why not write 3-4 more? Another great example of my willingness to give in to hypothetical progress bar and waiting lines was callgraph.biz. I signed up and was placed #2500 in queue. The first few days were manic refreshes and F5 key slamming. After those initial days, I gave up. Later on I was accepted, but I had lost my immediate thunder which I found while I was 'struggling' in a queue system. Luckily, being bombarded with "new test files available" in my inbox everyday convinced me to give them a try. It was a really interesting service and actually landed me a cheap part time job at my university. Who would have guessed "transcribing skills" was something people need? :D I think a pseudo-queue system or a progress bar is actually quite heroic in the first few days. Later on, you lose that immediate faith and interest. You have to utilize it properly in those first few moments! Convince your user they're #25,000 in waiting list. Send them an email saying they've been bumped to #10,000 later on that evening for some random word in the signup form, etc. You'll have them craving your service.