Comments | antisponsoredlj: A summarized version of my reply to Brad's post.

insomnia in antisponsoredlj

A summarized version of my reply to Brad's post.

Oct 03, 2006 02:48

"I care about LiveJournal a lot .... The reason I sold LiveJournal, to retell an old story, is because I was too stressed doing LiveJournal alone (it's a ton of work), and I was on the verge of shutting it all down. I sold it to the least evil company I could find..."

Just like you did with FreeVote.com, and almost did with LiveJournal, back when it ( Read more... )

Comments 27

obvious October 3 2006, 12:49:59 UTC

Well said.

So are the communities here to stay because they already signed the contracts and took the money? Or is 6A behind the scenes saying it's here to stay.

queerbychoice October 3 2006, 14:50:09 UTC

I'm pretty sure it's the latter. Because if it were the former, it would be to 6A's advantage to say so, and all I hear them saying is that they won't get rid of sponsored communities, never that they can't.

pir_anha October 4 2006, 00:10:07 UTC

this post is probably getting lost in the noise, but it's important.

for anyone who thinks this can be fought (i am no longer sure it can be), that information needs to inform your strategy.

insomnia October 4 2006, 00:28:35 UTC

I completely understand that the people putting up the money have a lot of say in the decisions of 6A, but they don't have all the say.

Above all, they certainly don't speak for the advertisers, who must decide whether their promotional campaign via LJ was worth doing or not.

That's why I believe that targeting the advertisers is the way to go. If they're not seeing any value in the deal, and see a lot of negative public reaction to a campaign, then they'll pull out, or let their project fade away.

And if the advertisers aren't there, then sponsored communities will die for the very reason you mentioned -- lack of ROI as compared to the staffing costs for pursuing that particular money-making initiative.

Thread 5

queerbychoice October 3 2006, 14:55:31 UTC

Would you happen to be interested in becoming the third comoderator of this community? I haven't asked larkspurlazuli about it yet, but since it was a comment from you that gave me the idea of suggesting that we should have a boycott-focused community (after which larkspurlazuli, who originally founded the community, volunteered this one for that purpose) . . . to me it seems highly appropriate that you be a comoderator. The community became what it is now largely in response to your suggestions.

insomnia October 3 2006, 17:38:04 UTC

I would be fine with being a co-moderator, but I kind of wonder whether more moderation is actually needed.

Seems to me that what is missing is a coordinated plan. You need to get people focusing their efforts on something new every day. One simple, short task per day, designed to draw attention to what we are doing here. A shotgun approach for dealing with things to do against ads would probably not be focused enough, and may not result in enough activity happenning to really embarrass particular advertisers, in order to get them to stop.

queerbychoice October 4 2006, 01:01:05 UTC

It looks like you're a moderator now! I think we may well need this many moderators, since few if any of us are really available to be full-time moderators. Anyway, you seem to be full of ideas, and we definitely need that. I just took your suggestion and asked in adbusters, but I hope you'll be able to suggest some specific "short, simple tasks" on future days, so that the rest of us can get a clearer idea of what you mean and follow your lead.

larkspurlazuli October 4 2006, 03:24:39 UTC

Yes, I completely agree.

Thread 6

mcfnord October 4 2006, 03:43:52 UTC

Where's all this bonkers hostility coming from?

insomnia October 4 2006, 04:14:08 UTC

I invested a lot of time and energy into helping to create and run LJ, including coming up with the idea for LJ's communities in the first place. I don't want to see 6A breaking the promises that were made to LJ's users regarding ads, just to turn them into some kind of money making commercial vehicle, especially when there's very little commercial value -- and very little need -- for the communities they're talking about selling anyway.

It's a good way to mess up the site's culture, while making relatively little actual money in the process.

mcfnord October 4 2006, 04:21:45 UTC

Dude that was you? Well LJ communities are still here. We're in one now!

There is real commercial value. Marketers need to operate within the social network to be successful. So far I've heard they show up in search queries, but in their own category. Like... Google. A user-initiated query finds information the user wants. is it "unbiased"? is any information "unbiased"? (Does it even matter that a movie about a floppy magic horsie needs to be "unbiased"?) In any case, it's uniquely marked as commercial space. Anyway, discovery is facilitated in this ethical fashion and the person parsing the search query results may, indeed, CRAVE discovery of Harry Potter's Official Joint. And so long as none of it is in my face, I hope they find it.

I hate advertising, and take efforts to keep it out of my life. What about this implementation will drive me away?

insomnia October 4 2006, 07:37:33 UTC

My biggest concern regarding paid communities is what happens once you get large clients -- such as Warner, for instance -- who have a portfolio of such sites. How will they interact in a situation where there are other "competeing" communities with large audiences? Will they promote themselves inside those communities? Will they have communities shut down for copyright violations, using the DMCA? How will LJ react in such cases, knowing that significant money rests on their actions ( ... )

Thread 16