Ads for Livejournal, OpenOffice.org Tetum, Cory Doctorow, Antimonopoly, Taxing Times, Ditmar, Geoff

[tcpip]

Livejournal is going to have ads. I'm sure I remember Six Apart saying they wouldn't do this when they bought it. For my part, I've joined no_lj_ads. Their proposal is quite sound; ads for those who want them; noone else.

EDIT

Six Apart have changed their records. They had a contract which said no ads. Then they changed that to 'principles'.

End Edit

I have just put a proposal to OpenOffice.org to establish a project for translation into Tetum. I think this is a very worthwhile project given that is the majority and official language of Timor Leste. Given my current work with, god help me, MS-SQL Server and MS-Access databases I can see myself contributing somewhat to the development of OpenOffice.org Base this year as well. I'm also interested in seeing if OOBase and MySQL can talk to each other better.

Was fortunate enough to see Cory Doctorow this week with caseopaya, imajica_lj and claudine_c. Also managed to exchange brief conversation with lokicarbis. Cory's presentation was on why closed-source and proprietory formats for entertainment were both dangerous for users and bad business. It made a lot of sense, albeit he could be a little cavalier with his history when it was not central to his point.

This Friday's entertainment will be an evening of Antimonopoly at Prosper Australia. Even when I'm having fun and politics at the same time gaming gets involved. Oh, I should point out they've formally employed me as well to launch a campaign among academics and the general public for (fairer, simpler, efficient, productive) tax reform. On a related topic I finished my tax and saw my accountant yesterday. All as expected; I owe the Australian government a modest amount (a few thousand).

Congratulations are due to valeskah1 whose SF/fantasy journal Ticondero has won a Ditmar for the past year. My decision to write for it was evidently well-timed. I have just sent off my fourth review for the year (Shade's Children by Garth Nix) to said journal.

Comments

[caseopaya.livejournal.com]

Monopoly, wine on a winters evening, what more could a person want? :p

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Well that's a good point really. And the company is good fun as well. Also we get to go into the city on a Friday night. There's a damn fine restaurant downstairs...

[caseopaya.livejournal.com]

Guess I know where we're going for dinner then? (cheeky grin)

[catsidhe.livejournal.com]

Their proposal is quite sound; ads for those who want them; noone else.
I assume you're talking about no_lj_ads here. Only that is misleading, because that is the LJ proposal as well. They're not forcing anyone to have ads, but they are making the option available for those who opt in, with some carrots to encourage them.

I thought it a decent plan, myself. It's not something I'd go for, but it's not like they're replacing free with sponsored, so I'm not being forced in any way to go for it.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

You will see ads on friends pages who have taken up Sponsored+. See the profile for no_lj_ads. In other words, it's not an "opt-in" system, but a "others opt in".

I prefer the objective that no_lj_ads has; ads only for those who want Sponsored+ accounts.

[wildilocks.livejournal.com]

Not impressed by the change in policy, though I think the system is a fair one, I object to the blatant 180. I can't believe they aren't making enough money from paid accounts though: I probably know at least as many people with paid accounts as free ones. I'm sure alot of people will be quite happy about this option though, as some people would love paid features but genuinely can't afford them. As long as I don't see ads on my friends' page, I'll be okay with it. I guess this will allow them to make money from a large part of their demographic who would never have a paid account - the teenagers.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Interestingly, I note that they've also just taken the percenatge of paid users off their stats page.

http://web.archive.org/web/20050331021551/http://www.livejournal.com/stats.bml

So they had 1.5% of users with paid accounts; some 100,000 people paying about $25 USD per annum that's about $2,500,000.

Guess the margin isn't big enough.

[mystic-one.livejournal.com]

the whole ads thing sucks big time... I don't wish to pay for an account - but I don't want the ads either.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

I suspect the ads are part of a win-win financial strategy for 6Apart. On one hand if everyone puts up with the ads, they get some income. On the other if people are pissed off they'll pay for a permanent account. It's an interesting combination of using a stick and a stick to motivate people financially.

[mystic-one.livejournal.com]

yea but still.... it sucks :)

[neonchameleon.livejournal.com]

I've seen a comment from Six Apart/LJ about not running on good will. But if they don't have my good will, I will not keep paying for my account.

They have changed their contract unilaterally and then used this change - therefore they've lost an awful lot of good will from me. They may not run on good will, but they sure as hell can't run without it...

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

They don't run on good will; until SixApart took of the account-type page on their stats page (last year) they were grossing $2.5 million USD per annum through paid subscriptions.

[blondium.livejournal.com]

Well done with the proposal to openOffice.org...It feels like Tetum gets overlooked because of the presence of Portuguese and Indo.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Thanks. I'd deliberately left it for a while waiting in the wings to see if there was some movement by the Timorese themselves, but I guess they have bigger issues on their agenda... This is just a small way I can help out.