Sir –
I would like to reassure my 4 regular readers that this LJ will not be featuring ads, even in the face of the new Sponsored+ level of free LJ subscription. And the day that the powers that be present adverts on this LJ as a matter of course will be the day that this LJ ceases to exist.
Yours,
Principled of Culver City
Gasp! How will I know what to buy!? I rely on ads to tell me where to put my moneys.
Actually, we talked to Kevin, the General Manager of LJ this weekend, and he was a very nice guy, and from our 10 minute conversation, I got the sense that he's really running around working hard to keep it a good forum for its people. He and his wife are avid LJ users, and want it to continue on as it is, because its their online home, too – they eat their own dogfood daily.
We talked a bit about MySpace, and he said he'd greatly prefer not to attract MySpace people. They don't want warm bodies. They want people for whom the site works well. He also didn't want to force advertising to draw in people, but rather figure out ways to increase awareness, such that people for whom the site would be a great fit can find it. Word of mouth, of course, remains a huge method of attracting new folks, me included.
He liked what we had to say, and could tell we were real LJ users, who use it in interesting ways, so he gave us his personal email address and said if we ever have something we wish we had, or that's bugging us, to let him know. I said he must get 1000s of emails to that address, and he assured us he doesn't like to give his actual email out to many people, so it's still very low volume, and he'll definitely read and respond. We left feeling a lot better about it, which means we're right, or were all 3 triumphantly duped. I remain hopeful for the former.
(http://livejournal.com/users/greatbiggary)