Make Money Fast With LiveJournal!

[jducoeur]

It's interesting to notice my own knee-jerk reactions sometimes.

Just got up to the announcement of the new LJ feature letting you put ads on your journal. (Basically, you can associate your journal with Google AdSense.) Intellectually, I don't have a problem with the way they're doing it -- it's strictly opt-in, and they're passing on 100% of the proceeds to you. In principle, it lets people make a little money, in a way that is very normal these days. (What's in it for LJ? It's a paid-members feature, so presumably they are hoping that bloggers who have lots of readers will find it worthwhile to pay for an account in order to make money off of Google.)

And yet, my gut reaction was quite negative: it somehow felt like it was intruding crass commercial reality yet further into the space of me and my friends. That actually surprises me -- I hadn't realized that button was there. Too many years of spam and popup ads have clearly made me resentful of them, to a degree that I find just a little irrational.

How about you? Positive, negative, indifferent?

ETA, since several people have asked in one way or another: I *believe* the scheme is that the ads won't show up when you read your friends page normally, only if you actually look at the person's journal. The reason I believe this is that they've also added a new option that lets you deliberately opt *in* to reading the ads from your friends view, apparently on the theory that it's a way to put a little money into your friends' pockets. I confess, I'm skeptical about the idea; it'll be interesting to see how many people turn that on...

Comments

really really selfish perspective.

[selkiechick]

I will have to see how the execution of it goes, but in general, I feel a bit negative. It's not that I don't think people should be able to profit from their journals, but part of the reason I paid for a membership was so that I would have an ad-free space in my life. If the new Ad-Sense program means that there is advertising in my future here on LJ, I am... not ok with that.

Re: really really selfish perspective.

[tashabear.livejournal.com]

You can set your journal so everything displays in your chosen style -- I presume (perhaps erroneously) that that would include blocking the ads.

I have a permanent account, so I'm hopeful that I am immune from them, because they would annoy me greatly.

Re: really really selfish perspective.

[qarylla.livejournal.com]

I hope that the style=mine includes blocking ads, though the main purpose I have in using it is to prevent my eyes from bleeding out with a friend's very bright pink journal.

That said, we have ad blocking at work and it seems to work on Adsense ads, so I likely won't see the ads while I check in over lunch. Just the rest of the time.

Re: really really selfish perspective.

[tashabear.livejournal.com]

If you're using Firefox, there's an extension called AdBlock that will do the same thing. You have to do the settings yourself, but once it's set, you should be fine.

Re: really really selfish perspective.

[jducoeur]

See my edited post. I don't think the ads will show up when you're reading your flist. Don't know what happens if you click through to an entry from a friend who has ads turned on.

(Mind, I don't really expect any of my friends to turn this on: I suspect there's going to be a lot of cultural pressure against it. But I'm not sure I would see the ads even if they did.)