Sponsored Community and Features brouhaha recap
The first sponsored community started being pimped out on the front page approximately on September 6th, but only until the posting of Sponsored Content to lj_biz has a nascent backlash been awakened. The attempted clarifying edit to the post failed to sooth folk; brad made another post Sponsored Confusion, which ended up needing its own soothing edit for other factors, as well.
The news hit Slashdot, Making Light, and Techcrunch (which has an appearance of the one and only Anil who asserts "Paid users will not see ads."--maybe a good sign!?).
There's petitions, letter writing, and calls for boycotts of Six Apart as well as any advertiser who makes sponsored communities. Several retaliation communities have been created. (scienceofsuck, antisponsoredlj, fucksixapart, november52006, and sleepscience.)
scienceofsleep now has folk storming in and accusing posters of shillery or talking of their boycott.
All the hullabaloo has inspired a upcoming staff meeting at Six Apart later to day, so more news is sure to be forthcoming. The changelog reveals a new minicon in front of sponsored links that turns the red community icon green, but folk with some kinds of colorblindness or screen readers would might still have a difficult time discerning the difference.
Edit 2:38 PST: The new sponsor colored icon seems to be live, and a new post with "we're changing things based on your feedback" in bold has been made to lj_biz.
The news hit Slashdot, Making Light, and Techcrunch (which has an appearance of the one and only Anil who asserts "Paid users will not see ads."--maybe a good sign!?).
There's petitions, letter writing, and calls for boycotts of Six Apart as well as any advertiser who makes sponsored communities. Several retaliation communities have been created. (scienceofsuck, antisponsoredlj, fucksixapart, november52006, and sleepscience.)
scienceofsleep now has folk storming in and accusing posters of shillery or talking of their boycott.
All the hullabaloo has inspired a upcoming staff meeting at Six Apart later to day, so more news is sure to be forthcoming. The changelog reveals a new minicon in front of sponsored links that turns the red community icon green, but folk with some kinds of colorblindness or screen readers would might still have a difficult time discerning the difference.
Edit 2:38 PST: The new sponsor colored icon seems to be live, and a new post with "we're changing things based on your feedback" in bold has been made to lj_biz.