Live Journal Sponsored Content
LiveJournal announced this evening that they will soon begin offering sponsored communities with benefits to participating users and sponsored features provided by companies other than LiveJournal.
The SixApart owned social networking site has slowly rolled these plans out over recent months but just made the official announcement tonight. Early feedback from users is decidedly negative.
I miss the days of Live Journal being 100% Open Source and not so commercial but I guess for things to grow and move forward, it’s bound to happen.
I was an early adopter of LJ as we use to call it and I still have my paid account which I keep for archival purposes. Of course the bulk of my content is found right here on my Geek With Laptop site.
One of the great things about LiveJournal was if you had a paid account, you received all kinds of special features.
Live Journal really took care of the paid members and even the free users and because of the mass amounts of paid users, there were no advertisements.
When the time came and Brad sold his baby to Six Apart back in January 2005, a lot of LJ users asked “What does this mean for LiveJournal?” and we were told:
Nothing earth-shattering. LiveJournal development and support will continue, and will probably even accelerate.
We were even told that paid members wouldn’t be blasted with advertisements. Yay, no SPAM. I don’t like SPAM.
According to Six Apart, sponsored communities will be groups sponsored by advertisers who are offering group members things like exclusive movie trailers, behind-the-scenes footage, travel advice, tips and tricks, special deals.
Ok, most of that stuff is already freely available all over the internet on sites like Expedia, Google Video and YouTube.
There is some potential here, and this is an increasingly common direction for social networks to move in, but it will be a difficult strategy to pull off and not upset long time users of Live Journal, especially the paid users.
The other kicker is paid users of Live Journal are going to see the sponsorship information which will be unobtrusive according to Six Apart on pages about sponsored features.
They claim that they don’t consider this to be advertising. Blah! I disagree. Hey Live Journal friends, how do you feel abou this?
I’m glad that I can run my site advertisement free. Nothing but content here baby!
Blog Grim Reaper
House Approves Warrantless Wiretap Law
I can’t believe this! What in the world are these people thinking?
WASHINGTON - The House approved a bill today that would grant legal status to President Bush’s warrantless wiretapping program with new restrictions. Republicans called it a test before the election of whether Democrats want to fight or coddle terrorists.
The war on terrorism shouldn’t be fought at the expense of civil and human rights. Simple as that.
The bill, sponsored by Republican Heather Wilson gives legal status under certain conditions to Bush’s warrantless wiretapping of calls and e-mails between people on United States soil making calls or sending e-mails and those in other countries.
I have friends in other countries, I communicate with many bloggers around the globe via email and phone.
This is very upsetting news but just another reason for people to use PGP or some other form of encryption in online communications.
Under the measure, the president would be authorized to conduct such wiretaps if he:
- Notifies the House and Senate intelligence committees and congressional leaders.
- Believes an attack is imminent and later explains the reason and names the individuals and groups involved.
- Renews his certification every 90 days.
The Senate also could vote on a similar bill before Congress recesses at the end of the week.
Leaders concede that differences between the versions are so significant they cannot reconcile them into a final bill that can be delivered to Bush before the November 7 congressional elections.
Lifehacker Guide to weblog comments
On September 16, 2006 I posted about doing some research on commenting on blogs and forums and found an article posted by Gina Trapani on Lifehacker.com and referenced a few good points that everyone should follow in my original post.
Shortly after that post I got to thinking that it would make a really nice guide for others to have on hand in download form, so I contacted Gina asking for permission to do just that, make a guide for download based on her article and just moments ago I received some exciting news via email:
Sure thing Sean, thanks for asking.
Gina Trapani - Editor
http://lifehacker.com
This made my day. I’ve been a reader of Lifehacker.com for quite some time now and to get the A-OK from the Editor to publish a great piece of work on my site is a huge honor!
You can now find the complete guide to weblog comments on my project page.
While you’re there, be sure to also check out the Guide to Blogging E-Metrics Simplified which is a work in progess by Doug Karr and myself.
Happy blogging!
Where is the Secret of Life?
Google celebrates 8th Birthday
Google is a little late with the birthday logo because technically it should have been up on September 8th, 2006.
Happy 8th Birthday Google! May all your birthday wishes come true!