LJ gets ads!!!
Wow, so this is interesting. If you don't know what I'm talking about, go look at the front page or read this. More background here from the founder.
Verry interesting... I don't know quite what to think. On the one hand, getting the benefits without shelling out $20 a year sounds pretty sweet. On the other... yuck, ads. I decided to test out the new Sponsored+ level. They look basically just like the Gmail text ads... I didn't see any pictures, on my journal at least. (ETA: There are banner ads at the bottom of profile pages.) The ads that showed up on my journal were for Creative Writing classes, Harry Potter paraphenalia, and food(!). So, probably all drawn from my interests list. I thought maybe they were screwing up my layout, but it actually looks like it's okay.
Actually, what concerns me more is all the drama that is likely going to come from this. azurelunatic has kindly written up a summary of some of the discussions so far. It's pretty amusing actually. Especially the part about the poll that found that the general response of LJ to the new policy is "PIKACHU!" Humor wins the day again. :-)
I can see that it's a pretty complex issue. Brad's post makes it sound like they're trying to extend the cool features to more people who maybe can't pay for them, on an opt-in/opt-out basis. Cool. Nice and egalitarian. But it does undercut the people with paid accounts, and it's not totally opt-out for free account-ers, either. So that's shitty. I really don't like the way it sets up a conflict-waiting-to-happen between sponsored+ users and free/opt-out users and paid account users.
I guess it comes back to that old question of, is this a community or a business? In point of fact, it's both and that makes it tricky.
Verry interesting... I don't know quite what to think. On the one hand, getting the benefits without shelling out $20 a year sounds pretty sweet. On the other... yuck, ads. I decided to test out the new Sponsored+ level. They look basically just like the Gmail text ads... I didn't see any pictures, on my journal at least. (ETA: There are banner ads at the bottom of profile pages.) The ads that showed up on my journal were for Creative Writing classes, Harry Potter paraphenalia, and food(!). So, probably all drawn from my interests list. I thought maybe they were screwing up my layout, but it actually looks like it's okay.
Actually, what concerns me more is all the drama that is likely going to come from this. azurelunatic has kindly written up a summary of some of the discussions so far. It's pretty amusing actually. Especially the part about the poll that found that the general response of LJ to the new policy is "PIKACHU!" Humor wins the day again. :-)
I can see that it's a pretty complex issue. Brad's post makes it sound like they're trying to extend the cool features to more people who maybe can't pay for them, on an opt-in/opt-out basis. Cool. Nice and egalitarian. But it does undercut the people with paid accounts, and it's not totally opt-out for free account-ers, either. So that's shitty. I really don't like the way it sets up a conflict-waiting-to-happen between sponsored+ users and free/opt-out users and paid account users.
I guess it comes back to that old question of, is this a community or a business? In point of fact, it's both and that makes it tricky.