LJ Design and the Sponsored+ Launch

May 13, 2006 18:28

winniewong made a post in lj_design about the Sponsored+ level, with some really interesting information. I'd really love to discuss it here from our POV, as well.

plus level layouts

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Comments 27

Sentences I find interesting foxfirefey May 14 2006, 01:37:26 UTC
So when everyone agrees what the standard sizes and rules for advertising are, advertising agencies and companies create ads that meet those specs, and then sell them on a bunch of different sites (like LJ).

No wonder the ad sizes are big and clunky. If they're going by IAB standards, that's not likely to change, either.

There are different positions that make the ad more valuable. Advertisers usually are willing to pay the most for the box ad, and if the ad sits "Above the Fold" it's even more valuable.

In other words, the more intrusive and annoying the ad, the more valuable it is to advertisers. The advertisers give LJ an economic incentive to make the ads intrusive.

But for the first release of Sponsor+ we needed to get out there fast,

Why did this need to be done so quickly? The lj_biz post wasn't talking about a financial crisis. Maybe there is and we just don't know?

The bad news was that not enough people were signing up.

Hopefully this stays true. The more people that sign up, the worse the situation gets for Basic ( ... )

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Re: Sentences I find interesting polyfrog May 14 2006, 01:40:53 UTC
And the fewer people sign up, the more likely (still near zero) that they'll give up on ads.

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Re: Sentences I find interesting foxfirefey May 14 2006, 01:42:20 UTC
I dunno. I think we're kind of doomed as far as getting rid of the ads.

There's full time staff on the payroll. This wasn't some casual little try out jaunt.

Not to mention the current Sponsored+ users will cry if it is taken away from them. Just like so many Free users were always crying about "More icons! More icons!" but not paying.

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Re: Sentences I find interesting polyfrog May 14 2006, 01:46:31 UTC
As I said; "still near zero."

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sasuko May 14 2006, 01:48:24 UTC
I don't know what you think, but I think she didn't represent the side of not wanting to impose ads on others. That, I think, is a drawback in the system in itself--and that has not been addressed yet. If you don't address it, the people who hold out for that reason will continue to hold out.

mostly when we ask people what they think of ads, they say they hate them. But then when you get out into the real world, they almost always seem to prefer ads to paying.

I'm not convinced because this seems like armchair speculation to me. Furthermore, it glosses over facts very conveniently. Prefer ads to paying for what? Prefer ads on your journal in return for paying for a car? Prefer ads in return for paying for an entire paid account?

Or prefer ads to paying for only features that you want? This issue has never been properly dealt with, as far as I'm concerned. As such, I'm not convinced.

this was the kind of project where market research and focus groups do a better jobTrue. My question is just has there been enough market research? I' ( ... )

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donutgirl May 14 2006, 01:57:18 UTC
I tried out the navigation strip for about an hour, but I hated it. So ugly! And not terribly useful.

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tiferet May 14 2006, 01:59:33 UTC
I dislike the Navigation Strip, personally. it's annoying.

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ex_shattered767 May 14 2006, 05:05:04 UTC
As far as the navigation strip goes, I think people who get around the internet saw through the shineyness and realized it's more or less a rip of Blogger's toolbar. ;)

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carmentalis May 14 2006, 09:23:31 UTC
As far as the neglecting of the navigation bar goes, my impression is that it's not so much a matter of people not knowing about it, but of users taking a look and then quickly disabling it again.

The whole lj_design post sounds very amateur to me. I come from a marketing background, and some of the statements made my hair stand on end. Annoying people into using something is always a great way of reaching a high level of user satisfaction.

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foxfirefey May 14 2006, 09:29:35 UTC
I'm from a geek background (Bachelor's in CS), so marketing speak is somewhat foreign to me; I'm interested in knowing which statements made your hair stand on end, and why?

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carmentalis May 14 2006, 09:42:48 UTC
Let's see...

The statement on usability testing, for example, or lack thereof. You don't bombdrop a controversial product on users without having any idea of whether it works, and then let all users tell you what they think. That's what test marketing is for. Also, that's where you iron out the bugs. You don't ask your entire customer base to do that work for you. They won't be amused, and they won't like the product because they'll always remember the first - bug-riddled - contact.

Lots of breath holding. We were all watching very closely, anxious about how the community would react. Similar matter. Market research is there so you know about this reaction in advance, because otherwise you risk annoying your users. Just because the development team thinks something is cool doesn't mean 10 million normal users will agree with it ( ... )

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ex_uniquewo May 14 2006, 11:18:32 UTC
"You don't bombdrop a controversial product on users without having any idea of whether it works, and then let all users tell you what they think. That's what test marketing is for. Also, that's where you iron out the bugs. You don't ask your entire customer base to do that work for you. They won't be amused, and they won't like the product because they'll always remember the first - bug-riddled - contact ( ... )

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ex_uniquewo May 16 2006, 22:21:36 UTC
I just wanted to mention that thread somewhere because it cracked me up. Poor, poor mart. He's spent so much time designing layouts to have them all ruined by stupid ads.

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