FRNK Radio

[jducoeur]

Since I suspect most people don't read lj_releases, a brief PSA:

LJ has added a new feature, called FRNK Radio. It's essentially a constant audio webcast, made up of the most recent public voiceposts made to LJ. (Presumably a random selection of them.) Kind of interesting, although I'm not sure it's something I would choose to listen to. Regardless, though, be aware that, if you make public voiceposts, they may wind up in this stream at some point.

(I don't see any obvious way to count yourself out from this feature, although I suspect that there will be some demand for an option to do so...)

Comments

[mikekn]

The way out might be through the command console. Unfortunately the reference does not list all the settings you can control.

I know you can use "set latest_optout yes" to keep your images off the latest LJ images feed - that may work for posts and voiceposts too.

[talvinamarich.livejournal.com]

My Lady is now informing the LJ team that

A) She's not doing any more voiceposts until an opt-out is given.

B) If an opt-out is not made available, she is going to seriously reconsider renewing her paid membership.

Having tried the radio...eh. I mean, there is no context. The first one was a guy discussing the options he had been given regarding his cancer. While not private, it wasn't something I felt needed to be broadcast on a "radio".

This is just going to have a real chilling effect on what people are willing to Voicepost.

[hfcougar.livejournal.com]

Wow, that's total crap. Thanks for the heads up.

At least I too only post boring things through voicepost. I think the only one I've made this year was about the cement truck that tipped over in the road to the GNE site.

It really disturbs me to imagine within the next few years just what of people's LJs that LJ Inc. will decide that they "own".

[jducoeur]

Well, in fairness I believe this is already (and always has been) true of text posts -- that people can access a post at random, and sort of "browse" LJ. So from the LJ team's POV, this probably isn't much of a change: they're just doing for phoneposts what was already available for text.

The thing that they've misunderstood is that the psychology of voiceposts is slightly different: the simple fact of it being voice makes it just a smidgeon more personal. Moreover, if FRNK Radio is sending the same stream to everyone, it changes the odds a lot -- there's a small chance of your posting being heard by *many* people, instead of a somewhat larger chance of it being seen by one.

So I think it's a pretty innocent mistake, but it *is* a mistake, IMO. My guess is that they'll be prodded into giving an opt-out within the next couple of months...