Upcoming meeting on March 10, 2009

[ljadvisoryboard]

There's an Advisory Board meeting on March 10 and we'd love to hear your thoughts about the agenda items listed below. We want to share your views and opinions with the Board so they can get a better picture of the issues that are important to you. Please comment on any of the agenda topics that are of interest to you and we'll present them at the

Comments

[imaria]

V-gifts should not be a priority. They are, in essence, png files. Please don't go overboard with them. There are much better ways to get us to add revenue.

Besides the ever-requested a la carte icon purchasing, LJ should be considering revenue that does not change the content available on the site already. The internal advertising is at about maximum saturation, so partnerships OUTSIDE of LJ might be better suited. Perhaps getting an LJ account AND an account at a similarly marketed website at a premium price would be worthwhile. Or perhaps giving Paid users a discount to an online retailer, with LJ receiving a portion of the money spent. There was an attempt at this type of deal with MooCards, which while they didn't appeal to most users, was a better idea for revenue building that was much less intrusive.

[kent]

I agree about V-Gifts. They're a revenue stream for LJ, not a feature that greatly enhances the user experience for most.

[kent]

Also, why isn't our user representative soliciting the opinions of users so s/he can represent the users at the meeting? Isn't that part of the job?

I would appreciate it if the board could discuss the 2009 user representative elections and how to improve them so the reported problems (ballot stuffing, candidates intimidated and threatened into dropping out, no clear role/accountability for the winner) won't happen again?

[kenboy]

Icons, for sure.

Are paid users still on faster servers (or somehow prioritized in some other way) then sponsored or free users? I used to have a Greasemonkey script that told me how much time I was saving over non-paid users. If they're not, consider bringing that back, and if they still are, make it even faster and make it a selling point for paid accounts.

V-gifts are worthless, IMO, and only get used when someone wants to prove a point (i.e., lots of Pepsi Max or whatever it was for the LJ staff.)

Consider breaking ALL of the paid user benefits into a la carte service -- I'll bet there are some unpaid users who would pay (a lower amount) for just icons, but who'd be happy to never use (and never pay for) polls or voice posts or scrapbook space, etc.

Use your relationship with Peanut Labs (if that still exists) to survey the user base, both paid and otherwise, on what they want and what they'd pay for, rather than just guessing.

[mereprototype]

Agreed completely. I like icons, the layout options that come with Paid status, and occasional voice posting, but that's it.

[pne]

Consider breaking ALL of the paid user benefits into a la carte service -- I'll bet there are some unpaid users who would pay (a lower amount) for just icons, but who'd be happy to never use (and never pay for) polls or voice posts or scrapbook space, etc.

As I understand it, the problem with this is that the people who never use (in your example) polls or voice posts or scrapbook space help keep the price down for those who use, say, polls and voice posts but only need five userpics.

Whereas if you broke it down, people would probably only buy exactly what they use -- and then the prices would have to depend not on what the average usage of the feature would be but more closely on the peak usage -- and you'd probably end up with a price so close to the one-size-fits-all cross-subsidising paid account.

[danceinacircle]

Be careful about making blanket statements - I, and a good portion of my Friends list, send and receive V-gifts regularly. ;)

Also, it looks like the faster server thing is still on. If you view the source of your page, it tells you how much time you saved over free users.

I like your idea about Peanut Labs - however, it doesn't look like that relationship is still there - at the minimum, the survey page is gone. :(

[imaria]

I was trying to grill my own brain for recent content & policy issues that needed discussion, but I admit to pulling a blank.

What substantive issues should we be pushing for?

[readysteadystop]

WELL STATED.

[julieannie]

It's been basically a year since the LJAB elections and still no communication from the English-speaking representative legomymalfoy. We haven't had updated minutes from the last meeting or any signs that any other meetings may have occurred. That's what I want from this meeting. An actual report.

I think the obvious step is getting LJ to follow through with the promise of a la carte userpics that were supposed to be delivered in 2008 and we're already nearing the end of the first quarter of 2009 and you all are worried about v-gifts. I'd rather pay for a service I would use, not merchandise or gifts that don't provide value.