theljstaff ([info]theljstaff) wrote in [info]news,
@ 2008-03-12 18:57:00
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The 100th day
Today marks the 100th day since we announced SUP's purchase of LiveJournal from Six Apart, the formation of LiveJournal, Inc, and goals for the first 100 days. We've made some amazing progress since that announcement, and we're really proud of what we've accomplished in such a short period of time: the team in the U.S. is growing, we've gained a VP of Product Development, set up a San Francisco home for LiveJournal, and we're ramping up recruiting so we can continue to support and improve the service.

Additionally, we’ve made some great movements towards establishing clear policy guidelines, and will continue to gather your ideas on improving these proposed policies in the coming days. We also started setting up an Advisory Board to help guide LiveJournal in the right direction. Previously, we announced four of the members, and provided information on the roles they will play. When we made this announcement, we mentioned that two of the members will be representatives elected by you. Please read our latest entry in [info]lj_2008 for the details on when these elections will occur, and how they will be held.

There have been a number of other changes in the past 100 days as well. Some of these are more visible, such as our new comment expanding feature, the addition of an icon for entries filtered to custom friends group, and the ability to easily discover new content with Explore LJ. We've also made some improvements to LiveJournal's infrastructure; email notifications should now be faster, and we're in the process of making other changes which will improve the site's overall speed.

Other changes you may have noticed are the logged-out homepage and registration process for new users. We streamlined and simplified things so that now it’s faster and easier than ever to create a LiveJournal account.

After focusing time on some of the most requested features, we are looking forward to the future and seeing how we can continue to make LiveJournal even better. We want to honor the tradition of being a unique place to write, share, and keep in touch with friends, while also helping people find communities of people with interests similar to their own. Our goals for the future include continuing to improve the design of the site, extending LiveJournal’s reach throughout the world, and improving our ability to support users worldwide… all while continuing to provide a compelling place to write and express yourself.

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[info]sarahq
2008-03-12 11:57 pm UTC (link)
It seems you've failed to mention removing the ability to create a basic account in this news post. The omission of such a drastic change from [info]news can only be deliberate.

Reducing a new user's options to (a) pay money or (b) see ads certainly qualifies as a momentous shift. Poor form, LiveJournal.

(Reply to this) (Thread)

[info]dawna
2008-03-13 12:04 am UTC (link)
+1

I am really disappointed.

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[info]uk_sef
2008-03-13 12:09 am UTC (link)
removing the ability to create a basic account
Did that happen very recently - because I've only just joined (end of last week) and appear to have a basic account (at least that's what it claims to be)?

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

[info]sarahq
2008-03-13 12:16 am UTC (link)
You just got in under the wire:

"Basic Account is an option available to accounts which were created before March 12, 2008. No account created after this date can be turned into a Basic Account. Basic Accounts will not have any advertising displayed on their accounts, but will have fewer benefits and features."

from http://www.livejournal.com/support/faqbrowse.bml?faqid=38&view=full

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)(Expand)
(no subject) - [info]ashley_y, 2008-03-13 08:32 am UTC (Expand)

[info]idonotlikepeas
2008-03-13 12:10 am UTC (link)
I quite agree.

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[info]prissi
2008-03-13 12:13 am UTC (link)
I am very disappointed, too.

(Reply to this) (Parent)

[info]amanda
2008-03-13 12:14 am UTC (link)
Entirely agree - you wrote it more eloquently than I could have, so I'll just be content with a '+1'

(Reply to this) (Parent)

[info]thevelvetsun
2008-03-13 12:15 am UTC (link)
I agree. LJ really should have let its users know about that. Considering the huge amount of users who neither want to pay nor see ads, I anticipate this greatly reducing the amount of new users willing to sign up.

(Reply to this) (Parent)

[info]attaining
2008-03-13 12:21 am UTC (link)
This is kind of thing that really makes me lose respect for LJ. I've sat through other changes quietly, but they've invaded my inbox with ads in notifications, and now I don't have any other option but to shell out cash just so I'm not spammed with flash movies?

(Reply to this) (Parent)

[info]snarkbite
2008-03-13 12:22 am UTC (link)
While I know that I am in the minority in my opinion on the actual removal of the Basic account option for new users, I agree 100% that not specifically stating that they were gone in this news post was bad form. It forces the situation to be 'discovered', a situation which invariably whips up even more bad feeling than was already going to be there.

ETA: Sorry for the comment notif spam, sarah -- wanted to clear up my imprecise wording re: status of Basic accounts. ;)


Edited at 2008-03-13 12:25 am UTC

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[info]sarahq
2008-03-13 12:40 am UTC (link)
No worries -- this is the sort of situation where one should take full advantage of comment editing to clarify a point!

Indeed, regardless of our opinions on the change itself, you'd think TPTB would realize that public relations, communication, and image issues have been a primary source of discontent among the usership. Considering LJ's had an ongoing problem with this (and an ongoing problem retaining active users), I would have hoped to have seen more attention to how PR is handled.

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)(Expand)
(no subject) - [info]snarkbite, 2008-03-13 12:55 am UTC (Expand)

[info]right
2008-03-13 12:24 am UTC (link)
I agree.

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[info]krysaia
2008-03-13 12:26 am UTC (link)
Agreed. I'm disappointed by the removal itself, but I'm even more disappointed by the lack of announcement.

Though by now you'd think I'd be used to LJ's poor form.

(Reply to this) (Parent)

[info]shadowsound
2008-03-13 12:31 am UTC (link)
agreed

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[info]desh
2008-03-13 12:32 am UTC (link)
Seriously.

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[info]trasnochadora
2008-03-13 12:43 am UTC (link)
Holy shit, LJ -- that's just not fucking on.

(Reply to this) (Parent)

[info]adarkheartdawns
2008-03-13 12:50 am UTC (link)
THANK YOU for bringing this up. I cannot believe this shit is not on the front page.

(Reply to this) (Parent)
Basic accounts
[info]jasonshellen
2008-03-13 12:50 am UTC (link)
I responded to the first user who mentioned this and I hope this answers some questions:

http://news.livejournal.com/106731.html?thread=68484587#t68484587

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)
Re: Basic accounts
[info]druidspell
2008-03-13 01:04 am UTC (link)
You did indeed respond to the first user who mentioned the removal of the option to create a Basic account; you did not, however, respond to [info]sarahq's question, which was "Why did you not announce this change in your News post?"
It's not that we like to make your life hard, sir, just that we do like answers to the questions we're actually asking, and not just the party line.

(Reply to this) (Parent)
Re: Basic accounts
[info]details15
2008-03-13 01:09 am UTC (link)
But you didn't respond to the issue at hand: Why was this not put in news? Why weren't we told that Basic will not be an option anymore? What this did, in short, was make LJ no longer a free, ad-free blogging site. Now, you have to pay or watch ads. That was one of the extremely unique things that set LJ apart. And now it is gone and you didn't even have the balls to tell us upfront but made us go and look for it.

(Reply to this) (Parent)

[info]sarahq
2008-03-13 01:10 am UTC (link)
Unfortunately, sir, it does not.

As an active LJ user for seven years, I have seen several changes to LiveJournal's approach to advertisements, as well as several examples of LiveJournal's poor communication with its userbase. The issues here are twofold:

1) To claim this change was implemented to improve usability during account creation is disingenuous. This move was made to increase ad impressions -- an admittedly legitimate and reasonable business move. Do not patronize your userbase by stating otherwise.

2) Regardless of the financial advantages of this change, there is another, arguably more important issue: this is dramatic change, one you and the rest of LiveJournal's management team expected would be contentious. And yet it was not mentioned in this [info]news post or announced in another official community. This is a glaringly obvious omission.

LiveJournal's problems with communication between management and the userbase have long been a source of significant distrust (and, no doubt, the source of LJ's ongoing decline in active users). I'm certain you are aware of these issues, and I am certain LJ's support staff brought their concerns to management's attention. This lack of concern for decent PR is more of an issue for SUP than the actual changes that were implemented.

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)(Expand)
ia! - [info]eighty, 2008-03-13 02:32 am UTC (Expand)
Re: Basic accounts
[info]lied_ohne_worte
2008-03-13 04:13 pm UTC (link)
I regret to say that my understanding of the term "answering questions" is somewhat different from yours.

(Reply to this) (Parent)

[info]artes
2008-03-13 02:14 am UTC (link)
So much for that promise they made us that they would not be removing basic accounts as an option and that we wouldn't have ads forced onto us...

(Reply to this) (Parent)

[info]glenniebun
2008-03-13 03:07 am UTC (link)
Now that I hadn't noticed. Weird.

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[info]admiralmemo
2008-03-14 04:22 am UTC (link)
Weird.

*gives you an award for "Understatement of the Century"*

(Reply to this) (Parent)

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