New page takeover ad type confirmed; ad FAQ consolidation; LiveJournal partners with AdNectar

[foxfirefey]

marta (who I am ever grateful for) has confirmed that the Best Buy ad is an approved LiveJournal ad; however, there has been a change in the ad's presentation, in that it no longer automatically plays audio.

Additionally, Frequently Asked Question #265: What are LiveJournal's guidelines on acceptable ads? has been modified, as the Best Buy ad trips

Comments

[intrepia]

gameboyguy13, not gamebody13 ;)

[foxfirefey]

I might start calling him that ALL THE TIME NOW.

...fixed, and thanks.

[intrepia]

MAYBE WE WILL ALL START CALLING HIM THAT. :D

[brewsternorth]

Goodish to know it wasn't a hijack; not so good to hear that they've essentially relaxed their rules. Granted, the internet has probably moved on somewhat since that FAQ was drafted, but it should've been re-examined and rewritten, not half-deleted.

[foxfirefey]

I'm not sure I agree--the internet hasn't moved from those guidelines much for good internet properties and those guidelines were a fairly decent compromise between revenue and user experience. Interstitials are still considered lucrative but aggressive and offputting. Video ads work on video content, but not as well on text content, although people will accept user initiated ones.

I feel the interstitials are a short term gain, long term loss kind of move.

The short term gains:

* Immediate revenue from a high CPM ad property
* Encourages some more involved people to buy paid accounts

The long term loss:

* Drives away people who are less involved with LJ who aren't inclined or savvy enough to use ad block and don't feel like they need to put up with interstitials when they know more people on Facebook anyway.

[soph]

SUP have found themselves in a vicious spiral though. They've already found themselves losing people; that's probably why they're trying ads that pay better. But by doing so they drive away even more people, which forces them to up their ad content even more, which... blah blah blah etc etc.

[foxfirefey]

Maybe they don't mind driving away the uncommitted, if the ad is lucrative enough and some people are driven to buy paid accounts.

[starlady38]

That Best Buy ad got more "what! no! okay, I'm off LJ for the time being"-type posts on my friends list than any other feature I can think of. Which might be a double standard, given the predominance of that sort of ad on other sites (at many of which I happily tolerate them, in order to read the site), but...yeah. This definitely seems like something SUP would want to proceed with caution on.

[foxfirefey]

Curious: Which other sites do you use with interstitials?

[lady_ganesh]

Salon.com uses them pretty regularly.

[foxfirefey]

Yeah, but as far as I know Salon.com is more of a premium content site, where they have paid writer's content instead of user generated content.

[mlady_rebecca]

Noisy animated ads is what made me search out AdBlock Plus in the first place. I think allowing them is a bad move.

(For the record, I have a permanent account, so I'm not violating any rules.)

AdNectar

[justgoto]

So that is the inexplicable black screen I keep getting?

Re: AdNectar

[foxfirefey]

Nope, those are interstitial ads from admnt.com, if I remember correctly. They're for Best Buy. Sounds like they might be malfunctioning on your setup.