LiveJournal Now Has Ads
Earlier this week, LiveJournal added ads to their site. They did it with a lot of care and advance notice (Brad, the founder, alerted his users that this was coming over a month ago). Not surprisingly, the comments on these posts are mixed. A lot of them are curious and supportive, but quite a few are negative and blame the 6A acquisition for this change.
Previously LJ had only two types of accounts: Paid and Free. If you have a Paid account you get extra features (like more userpics, voice posts, etc.). To fit in the ads LJ has added a new account level, Sponsored. If you opt-in then you get additional features (though not as many as a Paid account), you get ads, and your readers get ads. If you are a Paid user you never see ads on the site. Free account users only see ads on the content pages of Sponsored users. Here's a page that details the features for each account type.
I've been an LJ user for years. Curious, I immediately logged in to my account and added myself to the program. I was asked to select my interests for better ad targeting. I chose tech and wireless. I had kind of forgotten about it until i saw a banner ad on one of my pages the next day. On my journal and on my friends page there were Google contextual ads. I didn't mind the contextual ads, but the banner ads on the admin pages were unnecessary. If I have come to LJ to make a post, I don't want to look at Anti-Spam ads. I'm not sure that I will stay in the program as I don't think that I will use that many of the features and i'm just not *that* curious what Google ads will come up for my friend's posts.
I might be tempted to stay in the program if the ads were rev-shared and they removed the annoying banner ads. It's their platform and they've created a wonderful community, but it's still my content. It's my content making a buck for them and I don't get to share. On Blogger I can put up my own Google ads, on MSN Spaces I can use Kanoodle. Why can't I do that on LJ? Perhaps providing additional features to all users who rev-share would get even more money. This seems like something they should consider as I am sure that I am not the only user feeling this way.
More on this elsewhere: Valleywag has an interesting post on the changing clauses of their Guiding Principles.
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Comments: 5
[04.20.06 02:42 PM]
Check out wordpress, if you haven't already. I'm one happy wordpress user. Also, as the abovve poster mentioned, Adblock/Filterset.G makes the web a serene, calm place of information.
[04.20.06 08:18 PM]
I definitely could. Technically, I can't use adblock per their TOS.
from XVI 17b:
Employ tactics and/or technologies to prevent the full and complete delivery or display of advertisements on LiveJournal pages. These include, but are not limited to, the following:
1. Making journal style changes, customizations, or overrides that effectively block or substantially impair the display of advertisements on a Sponsored+ account's Content or other pages within the Service.
2. Employing and/or providing software programs, browser scripts, or other technologies that serve to block or substantially impair the display of advertisements on LiveJournal pages.
[04.21.06 03:10 PM]
yup, just saw that.
casey [04.20.06 12:27 PM]
Why not block the banner ads with Adblock if you don't like them? :)
I agree though, LiveJournal would do better by its users to do some revenue sharing with the Google ads.