article that blatantly states that LJ could give a shit about the "small but loyal" fanbase
article that blatantly states that LJ could give a shit about the "small but loyal" fanbase(c) roseredhoofbeat
LJ in the media: The Return of LiveJournal Jan. 20th, 2012 at 3:49 PMCheck out this Fast Company article for a glimpse of what you can expect at LiveJournal in 2012.
Tags:http://www.fastcompany.com/1809674/the-return-of-livejournal
BY Neal UngerleiderFri Jan 20, 2012 The Return Of LiveJournal
LiveJournal, one of the web's most popular early blogging sites, is launching a comeback in the United States. Their plans for 2012 include massive changes for users. Oh, and "Game Of Thrones" creator George R.R. Martin is a big user.
In the early 2000s, LiveJournal was king of the blogging hill. The site, which boasted an easy-to-use interface and a thriving social community, brought blogging to the masses. LiveJournal then went through a series of ownership changes; site creator Brad Fitzpatrick sold the blog service to Six Apart (Movable Type) in 2005. Six Apart in turn sold LiveJournal in 2007 to SUP, a Russian firm headed by controversial oligarch Alexander Mamut. Since 2007, LiveJournal has been focusing on growth in Russia and Singapore--where the blog service is incredibly popular. Now LiveJournal is planning a new drive to recapture American eyeballs... and it all comes down to community.
LiveJournal's American audience is currently centered around niche communities. Fan fiction writers, gamers, and various other Internet denizens have stayed with the site, which offers more intensive social networking functionality than Blogger, Tumblr, or WordPress. One standout is George R.R. Martin, the author behind hit HBO show Game Of Thrones. On his Livejournal, which he calls "Not A Blog," Martin writes in a surprisingly candid tone.
On Thursday, for example, he sounded off on director Tim Van Patton being nominated for an award by the Director's Guild of America for the show's first episode, "Winter Is Coming." "With this DGA nomination, and the SAG and WGA nominations previously reported here," he wrote, "it means that GAME OF THRONES has been recognized by all three of the major Hollywood guilds. Pretty damn cool."
The most popular hosted community on there by far, On No They Didn't, is a celebrity gossip blog with a massive commenter base. Currently, LiveJournal in the United States has 10 million monthly uniques, 30 million monthly visitors, and 170 million pageviews. However, these numbers trail behind the service's international traffic.
According to LiveJournal general manager Anjelika Petrochenko, LiveJournal's planning a major 2012 push based around attracting new users to community sites. Petrochenko told Fast Company that the blogging service was planning between 10-50 new community sites by the end of 2012. These new community sites will offer organizers and admins highly detailed metrics and statistics on user activity that appear to be more detailed than Facebook. Petrochenko also stressed that LiveJournal accounts do not have to be tied to a real name/identity and offered greater anonymity than other social networks. However, LiveJournal has been involved in numerous censorship controversies in the past.
Oh No They Didn't will be the first community site to participate in LiveJournal's initiative. The company designed custom widgets to highlight frequent commenters, instituted new metric tracking and analysis systems, and created a new, community-driven interface seemingly designed to deemphasize blog content. The next LiveJournal-hosted site to get a makeover will be the popular AnythingDisney fan site. LiveJournal is staking their continued American growth on the community model; Oh No They Didn't's Brenden Delzer was hired as an on-staff community editor by LiveJournal several months ago.
The formatting of Oh No They Didn't--which includes advertising and a commenting-heavy interface--is close to what LiveJournal has planned for other communities. LiveJournal founder Brad Fitzpatrick was famously opposed to paid advertising on the site; since LiveJournal's sale, operators Six Apart and SUP both instituted advertising.
Petrochenko told us that the community push is taking place because LiveJournal “is a trove of amazing community-driven, user-generated content. Its content consists of not just blog entries and photos, but hundreds of thousands of comments posted by people who are passionate about the topic at hand.”
LiveJournal's quandry is simple. LiveJournal is Russia's most popular blogging platform and plays a key role in the country's Internet ecosphere. LiveJournal has a staggering 1.2 million users in Singapore who primarily use the site for “blogshops”--a local hybrid of blogs and Etsy.com-style e-commerce. However, LiveJournal's American market share has massively declined in the past five years. Six Apart and SUP were simply unable to compete in the post-MySpace era. There was talk in 2011 of Yahoo purchasing SUP; however, Yahoo's current troubles make that transaction seem quite unlikely.
However, longtime LiveJournal users are upset by the changes. LiveJournal recently unveiled a complete redesign that overhauled the service's comments system, emphasized social networking, and set the stage for the upcoming communities blitz. Reaction from longtime users has been overwhelmingly negative--LiveJournal patrons slammed the redesign on the service's official blog.
LiveJournal's leadership has made it clear that their future American business strategy lies in generating new traffic rather than catering to the service's current small-but-loyal membership. The challenge for Petrochenko and other executives at LiveJournal will be redefining the brand's identity in a crowded media marketplace.
roseredhoofbeat wrote:
Jan. 21st, 2012 01:27 am (UTC)
Yes, let's link to an article that blatantly states that you could give a shit about the "small but loyal" fanbase that's kept you in business for over a decade. Brilliant. Link | Reply | Thread
thefreshchuff wrote:Jan. 21st, 2012 01:49 am (UTC)
"LiveJournal's leadership has made it clear that their future American business strategy lies in generating new traffic rather than catering to the service's current small-but-loyal membership." This is a really disheartening quote, and as a user with a permanent account who has been using Livejournal for 7, 8 years, being told my business is less important to you than some hypothetical "new user" is pretty crappy.
Link | Reply | Thread
seishin wrote:
Jan. 21st, 2012 06:32 am (UTC)
Truthfully though, we've (the users) all suspected it for years. LJ staff have only gotten the balls to flat out admit it now.
vodkabeforenoon wrote:
Jan. 21st, 2012 01:44 am (UTC)
Is this some form of trolling?
Talk about taking greedy bastard to a whole new level. You should just be frank with us and say you are not interested in the American consumer. Link | Reply | Thread
m03m wrote:
Jan. 21st, 2012 05:19 pm (UTC)
... Or the rest of us.
gelbes_gilatier wrote:
Jan. 21st, 2012 02:03 am (UTC)
So, basically you're proud of saying that the people who were loyal users for years are actually the ones you're not interested in? Whose fucked-up idea was that? And here I thought nothing could top September 2011's Delicious fuck-up. Honestly, this entire thing is so fucked up, I don't even have words for it.
Also, I predict the response to this will be going into hiding and hoping the shitstorm will be over in a few weeks. I don't think we're going to hear anything about this, as in a rollback or at least an apology. I suddenly have no idea why I even extended my paid account for another year, seeing as obviously, I'm not part of any group that's of interest to the people I just paid money to (longtime user and German...). Link | Reply | Thread
kajivar wrote: Jan. 21st, 2012 02:29 am (UTC)
We already suspected as much, but it's so lovely to have confirmation that Livejournal doesn't care about their (formerly) loyal users.
miwahni wrote:Jan. 21st, 2012 02:34 am (UTC)
So Livejournal needs to attract new traffic rather than catering to the existing clientele? Someone should explain to these folks that "retention" is every bit as important as gaining new users, only to lose them again the next time LJ institutes wildly unpopular changes. Churning your customer base is not a smart business practice. Instead, develop a reputation for dealing honestly and openly with users, listen to what your users are telling you, and watch your customer base grow. No point attracting new users if you're hemorrhaging users out the other end. I, and many like me, also have accounts at dreamwidth which treats their users 100 times better, and is growing more and more each day. The only reason I still participate at Livejournal at all is that I made the mistake of buying a permanent account. Link | Reply | Thread
gelbes_gilatier wrote:
Jan. 21st, 2012 02:36 am (UTC)
The only reason I still participate at Livejournal at all is that I made the mistake of buying a permanent account.
I find it kind of sad that you feel that buying a permanent account was a mistake, as are many others. This should be a home to users, not a house they regret having moved into :( Link | Reply | Parent | Thread | Expand
LJ in the media: The Return of LiveJournal Jan. 20th, 2012 at 3:49 PMCheck out this Fast Company article for a glimpse of what you can expect at LiveJournal in 2012.
Tags:http://www.fastcompany.com/1809674/the-return-of-livejournal
BY Neal UngerleiderFri Jan 20, 2012 The Return Of LiveJournal
LiveJournal, one of the web's most popular early blogging sites, is launching a comeback in the United States. Their plans for 2012 include massive changes for users. Oh, and "Game Of Thrones" creator George R.R. Martin is a big user.
In the early 2000s, LiveJournal was king of the blogging hill. The site, which boasted an easy-to-use interface and a thriving social community, brought blogging to the masses. LiveJournal then went through a series of ownership changes; site creator Brad Fitzpatrick sold the blog service to Six Apart (Movable Type) in 2005. Six Apart in turn sold LiveJournal in 2007 to SUP, a Russian firm headed by controversial oligarch Alexander Mamut. Since 2007, LiveJournal has been focusing on growth in Russia and Singapore--where the blog service is incredibly popular. Now LiveJournal is planning a new drive to recapture American eyeballs... and it all comes down to community.
LiveJournal's American audience is currently centered around niche communities. Fan fiction writers, gamers, and various other Internet denizens have stayed with the site, which offers more intensive social networking functionality than Blogger, Tumblr, or WordPress. One standout is George R.R. Martin, the author behind hit HBO show Game Of Thrones. On his Livejournal, which he calls "Not A Blog," Martin writes in a surprisingly candid tone.
On Thursday, for example, he sounded off on director Tim Van Patton being nominated for an award by the Director's Guild of America for the show's first episode, "Winter Is Coming." "With this DGA nomination, and the SAG and WGA nominations previously reported here," he wrote, "it means that GAME OF THRONES has been recognized by all three of the major Hollywood guilds. Pretty damn cool."
The most popular hosted community on there by far, On No They Didn't, is a celebrity gossip blog with a massive commenter base. Currently, LiveJournal in the United States has 10 million monthly uniques, 30 million monthly visitors, and 170 million pageviews. However, these numbers trail behind the service's international traffic.
According to LiveJournal general manager Anjelika Petrochenko, LiveJournal's planning a major 2012 push based around attracting new users to community sites. Petrochenko told Fast Company that the blogging service was planning between 10-50 new community sites by the end of 2012. These new community sites will offer organizers and admins highly detailed metrics and statistics on user activity that appear to be more detailed than Facebook. Petrochenko also stressed that LiveJournal accounts do not have to be tied to a real name/identity and offered greater anonymity than other social networks. However, LiveJournal has been involved in numerous censorship controversies in the past.
Oh No They Didn't will be the first community site to participate in LiveJournal's initiative. The company designed custom widgets to highlight frequent commenters, instituted new metric tracking and analysis systems, and created a new, community-driven interface seemingly designed to deemphasize blog content. The next LiveJournal-hosted site to get a makeover will be the popular AnythingDisney fan site. LiveJournal is staking their continued American growth on the community model; Oh No They Didn't's Brenden Delzer was hired as an on-staff community editor by LiveJournal several months ago.
The formatting of Oh No They Didn't--which includes advertising and a commenting-heavy interface--is close to what LiveJournal has planned for other communities. LiveJournal founder Brad Fitzpatrick was famously opposed to paid advertising on the site; since LiveJournal's sale, operators Six Apart and SUP both instituted advertising.
Petrochenko told us that the community push is taking place because LiveJournal “is a trove of amazing community-driven, user-generated content. Its content consists of not just blog entries and photos, but hundreds of thousands of comments posted by people who are passionate about the topic at hand.”
LiveJournal's quandry is simple. LiveJournal is Russia's most popular blogging platform and plays a key role in the country's Internet ecosphere. LiveJournal has a staggering 1.2 million users in Singapore who primarily use the site for “blogshops”--a local hybrid of blogs and Etsy.com-style e-commerce. However, LiveJournal's American market share has massively declined in the past five years. Six Apart and SUP were simply unable to compete in the post-MySpace era. There was talk in 2011 of Yahoo purchasing SUP; however, Yahoo's current troubles make that transaction seem quite unlikely.
However, longtime LiveJournal users are upset by the changes. LiveJournal recently unveiled a complete redesign that overhauled the service's comments system, emphasized social networking, and set the stage for the upcoming communities blitz. Reaction from longtime users has been overwhelmingly negative--LiveJournal patrons slammed the redesign on the service's official blog.
LiveJournal's leadership has made it clear that their future American business strategy lies in generating new traffic rather than catering to the service's current small-but-loyal membership. The challenge for Petrochenko and other executives at LiveJournal will be redefining the brand's identity in a crowded media marketplace.
roseredhoofbeat wrote:
Jan. 21st, 2012 01:27 am (UTC)
Yes, let's link to an article that blatantly states that you could give a shit about the "small but loyal" fanbase that's kept you in business for over a decade. Brilliant. Link | Reply | Thread
thefreshchuff wrote:Jan. 21st, 2012 01:49 am (UTC)
"LiveJournal's leadership has made it clear that their future American business strategy lies in generating new traffic rather than catering to the service's current small-but-loyal membership." This is a really disheartening quote, and as a user with a permanent account who has been using Livejournal for 7, 8 years, being told my business is less important to you than some hypothetical "new user" is pretty crappy.
Link | Reply | Thread
seishin wrote:
Jan. 21st, 2012 06:32 am (UTC)
Truthfully though, we've (the users) all suspected it for years. LJ staff have only gotten the balls to flat out admit it now.
vodkabeforenoon wrote:
Jan. 21st, 2012 01:44 am (UTC)
Is this some form of trolling?
Talk about taking greedy bastard to a whole new level. You should just be frank with us and say you are not interested in the American consumer. Link | Reply | Thread
m03m wrote:
Jan. 21st, 2012 05:19 pm (UTC)
... Or the rest of us.
gelbes_gilatier wrote:
Jan. 21st, 2012 02:03 am (UTC)
So, basically you're proud of saying that the people who were loyal users for years are actually the ones you're not interested in? Whose fucked-up idea was that? And here I thought nothing could top September 2011's Delicious fuck-up. Honestly, this entire thing is so fucked up, I don't even have words for it.
Also, I predict the response to this will be going into hiding and hoping the shitstorm will be over in a few weeks. I don't think we're going to hear anything about this, as in a rollback or at least an apology. I suddenly have no idea why I even extended my paid account for another year, seeing as obviously, I'm not part of any group that's of interest to the people I just paid money to (longtime user and German...). Link | Reply | Thread
kajivar wrote: Jan. 21st, 2012 02:29 am (UTC)
We already suspected as much, but it's so lovely to have confirmation that Livejournal doesn't care about their (formerly) loyal users.
miwahni wrote:Jan. 21st, 2012 02:34 am (UTC)
So Livejournal needs to attract new traffic rather than catering to the existing clientele? Someone should explain to these folks that "retention" is every bit as important as gaining new users, only to lose them again the next time LJ institutes wildly unpopular changes. Churning your customer base is not a smart business practice. Instead, develop a reputation for dealing honestly and openly with users, listen to what your users are telling you, and watch your customer base grow. No point attracting new users if you're hemorrhaging users out the other end. I, and many like me, also have accounts at dreamwidth which treats their users 100 times better, and is growing more and more each day. The only reason I still participate at Livejournal at all is that I made the mistake of buying a permanent account. Link | Reply | Thread
gelbes_gilatier wrote:
Jan. 21st, 2012 02:36 am (UTC)
The only reason I still participate at Livejournal at all is that I made the mistake of buying a permanent account.
I find it kind of sad that you feel that buying a permanent account was a mistake, as are many others. This should be a home to users, not a house they regret having moved into :( Link | Reply | Parent | Thread | Expand