Fandom: Blogging Bag Ladies
After reading the responses to a friend's post on sponsored accounts, I decided it was time to point something out.
SUP said from the get-go it acquired LiveJournal for international expansion. The American chunk of LiveJournal is not important to SUP's long range plans.
LiveJournal USA, since its humble beginnings (as Jason Shellen used to say), is a niche market. While some have accused 6A, and then SUP, of trying to turn it into the next MySpace or FaceBook, it would take serious drugs to be that optimistic about its growth potential.
SUP shows no sign of being under the influence of drugs. Its recent changes to USA accounts are geared towards maximizing profit from a static user base. Sponsored accounts, no more basic accounts: that's how to make money when you're stagnating.
To SUP, LiveJournal USA is the flagship department store in a slowly decaying downtown. And fandom is the bag lady sleeping in the entry way.
SUP's financial opportunities are in Eastern Europe, Asia, and South America, not here. Just as no one is dumb enough to introduce new cola drinksnot even Coke can any moreSUP won't compete with the giant social networks already dominating North America.
SUP dominates Russian blogging because it entered an untapped market. It desires to duplicate that success in countries where blogging is just taking off.
Back to the department store analogy. Sorry.
A flagship store, even if its profits are lower than the snazzy new place in the suburban mall, has crucial functions.
It has the cool executive office penthouse, essential for impressing out of town investors. It gives you a place to throw the annual Festive Winter Gift Giving Season party for employees. It proves you should be taken seriously.
Not many customers are walking in the door, but it looks good. You don't take the investors down to the basement clearance level, where the action really is.
You find ways to boost sagging profits. You start charging for parking. You have higher markups. You know it won't work out in the long run, but you don't care, because you are willing to operate the flagship store at a loss.
But what about those darn bag ladiesthe depressed bisexual yaoi addicts who bring down the tone of the place?
You may note a flaw in my comparison (yes, just one ^^). Bag ladies do not contribute financially to the success of a department store; fandom does contribute to LiveJournal USA.
But if your goal is to open new department stores worldwide, the small contribution of fannish bag ladies will not weigh heavily in the balance. Besides, the bag ladies shoplift, with their free no-ad accounts.
Sponsored accounts, in bag lady terms, are an offer to get you cleaned up and in a safe bed tonightbut you'll have to give up the drinking and swearing.
In responses to the post above, folks considered getting a sponsored account at LiveJournal, full of safe drivel, while putting all their hardcore bondage fanfiction at InsaneJournal and JournalFen. SUP would have a spontaneous orgasm if it read that.
There is a flaw with SUP's approach. In the USA, LiveJournal is the haven for people put off by the gimcrackery of MySpace and FaceBook. If SUP institutes changes making it a no bag lady zone, it will become irrelevant. Without Torchwood/LOLcat crossovers, the flagship store will eventually collapse.
But that will take months, if not years, and to SUP it doesn't matter, anyway. What SUP bought was LiveJournal the product, not LiveJournal the community. SUP has a whole world to play with, where blogging is serious businessand practically bag lady free. From a long-term profit perspective, I don't see a flaw in SUP's approach.
Why, then, has SUP made conciliatory noises as of late? Because, in bag lady terms, it's giving away half pints of gin. Important company is coming, and it wants us sleeping it off behind the dumpsters.
I'm not particularly sad about this.* There's a department store down the street that says I am welcome to sleep inside, on the sofa displays. And a bunch of my bag lady friends bought land in the country and are building a collective.
I won't miss the cardboard bed.
*As long as I stay in a fannish bubble and don't think about SUP's potential effect on online freedom of expression worldwide.
SUP said from the get-go it acquired LiveJournal for international expansion. The American chunk of LiveJournal is not important to SUP's long range plans.
LiveJournal USA, since its humble beginnings (as Jason Shellen used to say), is a niche market. While some have accused 6A, and then SUP, of trying to turn it into the next MySpace or FaceBook, it would take serious drugs to be that optimistic about its growth potential.
SUP shows no sign of being under the influence of drugs. Its recent changes to USA accounts are geared towards maximizing profit from a static user base. Sponsored accounts, no more basic accounts: that's how to make money when you're stagnating.
To SUP, LiveJournal USA is the flagship department store in a slowly decaying downtown. And fandom is the bag lady sleeping in the entry way.
SUP's financial opportunities are in Eastern Europe, Asia, and South America, not here. Just as no one is dumb enough to introduce new cola drinksnot even Coke can any moreSUP won't compete with the giant social networks already dominating North America.
SUP dominates Russian blogging because it entered an untapped market. It desires to duplicate that success in countries where blogging is just taking off.
Back to the department store analogy. Sorry.
A flagship store, even if its profits are lower than the snazzy new place in the suburban mall, has crucial functions.
It has the cool executive office penthouse, essential for impressing out of town investors. It gives you a place to throw the annual Festive Winter Gift Giving Season party for employees. It proves you should be taken seriously.
Not many customers are walking in the door, but it looks good. You don't take the investors down to the basement clearance level, where the action really is.
You find ways to boost sagging profits. You start charging for parking. You have higher markups. You know it won't work out in the long run, but you don't care, because you are willing to operate the flagship store at a loss.
But what about those darn bag ladiesthe depressed bisexual yaoi addicts who bring down the tone of the place?
You may note a flaw in my comparison (yes, just one ^^). Bag ladies do not contribute financially to the success of a department store; fandom does contribute to LiveJournal USA.
But if your goal is to open new department stores worldwide, the small contribution of fannish bag ladies will not weigh heavily in the balance. Besides, the bag ladies shoplift, with their free no-ad accounts.
Sponsored accounts, in bag lady terms, are an offer to get you cleaned up and in a safe bed tonightbut you'll have to give up the drinking and swearing.
In responses to the post above, folks considered getting a sponsored account at LiveJournal, full of safe drivel, while putting all their hardcore bondage fanfiction at InsaneJournal and JournalFen. SUP would have a spontaneous orgasm if it read that.
There is a flaw with SUP's approach. In the USA, LiveJournal is the haven for people put off by the gimcrackery of MySpace and FaceBook. If SUP institutes changes making it a no bag lady zone, it will become irrelevant. Without Torchwood/LOLcat crossovers, the flagship store will eventually collapse.
But that will take months, if not years, and to SUP it doesn't matter, anyway. What SUP bought was LiveJournal the product, not LiveJournal the community. SUP has a whole world to play with, where blogging is serious businessand practically bag lady free. From a long-term profit perspective, I don't see a flaw in SUP's approach.
Why, then, has SUP made conciliatory noises as of late? Because, in bag lady terms, it's giving away half pints of gin. Important company is coming, and it wants us sleeping it off behind the dumpsters.
I'm not particularly sad about this.* There's a department store down the street that says I am welcome to sleep inside, on the sofa displays. And a bunch of my bag lady friends bought land in the country and are building a collective.
I won't miss the cardboard bed.
*As long as I stay in a fannish bubble and don't think about SUP's potential effect on online freedom of expression worldwide.