LiveJournal to start including ads?!

[thewayne]

You may have heard about this, you may not. Apparently if you have a free account, your page may be served up with banner ads. And if you pay for your account and access someone's free account, you get ads.

Kinda sucks.

The worst part is that apparently their Terms Of Service say that if you use ad-blocking software, even if you're a paid subscriber, your account can be terminated immediately without notice.

That really sucks.

Makes me wonder if I should use the blogging software that came with my Scottsdale Hosting account. For that matter, theoretically, I could download the LiveJournal code for free and set up my own LJ system, but then your account grows into such a large web of friends that it isn't really practical to try to get all of them to move over: you can accomodate yourself, but it's your friends blogs that you want to read, unless you're just using your blog to rant and don't care about reading other's blogs.

The problem is that the people who created LJ sold the business not too long ago. A pledge was made that they would never have ads on the site. Guess what. The new company says that they need ads to be profitable! But don't worry, ads will be targeted according to the content of your blog, and we should all feel confident at that as we all know how well that works for other web sites. The REAL problem, from what I've read in Insomnia's blog (pointed to by vasco_pyjama is that the new parent company of LJ has a pet project that they've been pouring money into with no return, and since they're making money off of LJ, why not make LJ more profitable!

I go to moderate lengths to avoid ads. I don't use specific-purpose ad-blocking software, but my firewall and browser (Zone Alarm Pro & Firefox) both offer ad-blocking features. As long as I can avoid pop-ups, I'm sufficiently happy as I can easily enough ignore (usually) banner and side bar ads. But this sucks, to put in specific mention that blocking ads can result in your account being terminated with no notice. Vasco has already accounced that she's going to look for another blogging site (but not that she's relocating yet), should I be doing the same? I think one thing that I will do is to look at copying my entries off LJ, just like when I moved from Xanga to here.

I'm going to have to check and see if it can be done programatically.

http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/04/20/0312230

Comments

[deborak]

What you are saying is completely inaccurate according to the information LJ has provided about the new "Sponsored +" category that will have ads.

Check out this page. Pay particular attention to the "who will see ads" section.

[cardigirl.livejournal.com]

Hold your horses. I read Vasco's post too, but check her comments list where, I believe, several people have clarified much of what she noted.

(a) Free accounts do NOT get ads on them.
(b) If people come to your free account, they WON'T get ads.
(c) You *will* get ads if you (free account) go to someone who has purchased a "sponsored" account. If you have a paid account, you won't get ads even then.
(d) Brad/Honcho posted a apology with a *headdesk* about the Terms of Service that the use of ad-blocking software terms will get yanked asap, that it was a blindness on their part ... they had lawyers set up the ToS based on that of other sites' ToS's, and the head honchos didn't catch that clause. True or not, if it results in quick removal of that clause is all that counts. (http://community.livejournal.com/lj_ads/2258.html)

Ya wanna get excited about the Internet??? This should make you WAAAAY more exercised. (http://www.savetheinternet.com/) This is considerably more of concern than a few stinkin' ads that we will quickly develop banner-blindness to anyway, or block.

[kylejcrb.livejournal.com]

I thought they were just adding a new account level, which would freely give you some extra features that the paid members get, in exchange for displaying ads on your journal page (instead of paying LJ for it). As far as I can tell, it's entirely up to the individual if they want to display ads on their journal or not.

[magic-rat.livejournal.com]

Didn't everyone get the message about sponsored accounts, or do most people just remove LJ Maintenance from their Flist? I have a free account and have no intention of upgrading to either a sponsored or paid account. I find that the services of the free account are sufficient to my needs (and fully understand that may be different for others). Besides, I thought it inconsiderate to upgrade to a sponsored account because it would subject those few people on my Flist to ads that they probably didn't want to see in the first place.

[vasco-pyjama.livejournal.com]

Okay... Rex has got a sponsored lj. This is what is said: http://rexmundi.livejournal.com/164465.html

I think the concern is more that this is thin end of wedge, yada yada... and also it's a pledge broken, therefore violation of trust.

[cardigirl.livejournal.com]

Things seem to be behaving as advertised... I go read Rex when I'm signed in (paid account), I get no ads. I sign out and read there anonymously, I get a slot of ads on the right-hand side of the page. So far, text only, well-separated, and painfully ignorable -- there are flashing icons that make me twitch far FAR more!

I agree that it breaks the spirit of LJ's promises of no-fee-ever, and that's unfortunate. It doesn't break the letter of them, imo, because free is still free. This is an add-on, not an alteration of the core. Slippery slope arguments can be all too valid, so again I agree it's not a promising development, but sometimes such arguments are alarmism brought out by the simple fact of change, which is almost always scary to one extent or another. Me, I don't think LJ should be deep-sixed yet.

I hope you don't have to tell me "I toldja so." But honestly, I'm not worked up about it.

[vasco-pyjama.livejournal.com]

*keeping fingers crossed*.