Oh, *now* I remember

[hummingwolf]

One of the things that kept me busy on Saturday and a small part of Sunday was watching lj_biz, specifically this post about sponsored content on LJ followed by Brad's valiant attempt at damage control, both posts of course followed by umpteen zillion comments about how much people hate the idea of sponsored content. As bad as LJ's introduction of the change may have been, Making Light points out (link via supergee) that the real problem is what the publicists for The Science of Sleep did with the sponsored "community" they got for their money.

Unlike a lot of people, I don't hate advertising. In fact, I think it provides a valuable service (along with much entertainment) as long as it's informative (or at least entertaining) and not deceptive. The problem here is the erosion of trust created by a bunch of sock puppets pretending to be a community of genuine fans. I'm a big fan of real community. Fake "sponsored community" just makes me want to claw somebody's eyes out.

Comments

[meretia]

I've tried to care about this, but the way everyone carries on like it's oh noes the end of LiveJournal and the world! whenever there's a newspost just really robs this of any importance to me. Everyone will have forgotten about this whole episode in another two weeks and be carrying on about LJ's next big slip-up.

Despite that, sponsored communities are way lame.

[hummingwolf.livejournal.com]

Yeah, LiveJournal has ended about a zillion times since I got my account. They let people join without an invitation now! We'll be overrun by pathetic losers and the community will be ruined!

That said, I do have definite opinions on many of the changes. (S2: like it. Navigation bar: hate it. Ads on Plus accounts: okay as long as I don't have to see 'em. Tracking feature: cool, very useful when following threads on community posts. Sponsored "communities": so lame. Sockpuppets related to sponsored communities: destroy them all!)