please, please tell me this is a delayed april fool's joke

[sophiaserpentia]

LJ will now offer accounts which display ads on your journal and friend's page

But, hey! They'll be targeted ads, based on the interests in your interest list. Congratulations, you all belong to a focus group now!

Comments

[lassiter.livejournal.com]

Well, only a voluntary subset of users will be part of the focus group.

The Sponsored+ account level is an option for users who want access to premium features but would rather have advertising on their journal and Friends page and in the LiveJournal site than purchase a Paid account.

Personally, I've got no problem with it as long as it stays that way.

[sophiaserpentia.livejournal.com]

At the moment, paid users will not have to view ads on sponsored LJ pages. I wouldn't bet the farm that this will never change.

[ubiquity.livejournal.com]

Ah. But free users will?

[ubiquity.livejournal.com]

Yeah, but we'll see the ads on the comment pages of those who opt in.

[sophiaserpentia.livejournal.com]

Well, according to the handy dandy chart, paid users actually won't. Free users will.

[juliansinger.livejournal.com]

...Any change that needs charts to explain is too complicated.

(I meant to link to this whole thing when they were talking about it in lj-biz. But bleh.)

[sophiaserpentia.livejournal.com]

Life is hard.

[alobar.livejournal.com]

I guess this means that all LJ users who opt into this ad thing will get zapped from my friends list.

[lassiter.livejournal.com]

If you have a paid account you won't see ads.

[alobar.livejournal.com]

The way I understand it, if I respond to a comment of someone with ads, I will see the ad when that page reloads.

[lassiter.livejournal.com]

Maybe that's so, but that's not what they are saying here:

For Paid or Permanent account holders: Your support has kept LJ alive and growing all these years. We appreciate your continued support and you will get the most features and the highest storage limits. You'll never see ads as long as you're logged in, and no one will see ads on your journal whether they're logged in or not.

[alobar.livejournal.com]

I hope you are right. You tend to scrutinize these sorts of things better than I do.

[lassiter.livejournal.com]

I hope you are right.

Oh, yeah, so do I. Or I'll be majorly pissed too.