charmian: a snowy owl (Default)
Recently, LJ has been suffering from problems with their notification system. (they seem to have fixed it; I just received a notification) (http://community.livejournal.com/lj_maintenance/126582.html) So, if you're not receiving any notifications, this is why. Some people seem to be complaining in the comments about the situation, even though luckily, it appears that data hasn't been lost. Some claim that recently LJ has been having very poor uptime of basic features, but I guess I haven't noticed because I don't post at LJ much anymore and don't use many of the features, and so would be less inclined to notice.

Anyhow, in other recent news, it appears that LJ accidentally caused a virtual gift to be made available for free, so lots of people were sending them out. It is claimed, however, that this contributed to the notification problem.

So from this, it seems that people are willing to send out Virtual Gifts, they simply think that $1.00 is too high a price for them. (Or maybe any price? How elastic are these things?) Maybe LJ should give paid users like a certain amount of virtual gifts for free (which may encourage people to buy virtual gifts to reciprocate given gifts) or create an alternate means by which people may earn "money" for virtual gifts? I really wonder how much money LJ is currently making with the virtual gift system.

[EDIT: Here's where a staff member explains that it was a glitch and shouldn't have been offered for free: http://community.livejournal.com/lj_maintenance/126582.html?thread=11661430#t11661430 ]
charmian: a snowy owl (Default)
http://www.adnectar.com/press/release/adnectar-launches-branded-virtual-goods-on-twitter-and-livejournal/ Hmm, this perhaps explains those ugly vampire-themed gifts. According to this press release, LJ and Twitter are teaming with a company called AdNectar to sell "branded virtual gifts." (Their catchphrase seems to be: "turn consumers into brand advocates through the simple act of giving.")

The concept behind their business seems to be, according to Businessweek: "virtual goods are essentially social artifacts that people use to gain status among online peers. That makes them a better fit than traditional advertising on socially oriented sites."

So I am guessing, as a partner, LJ receives a cut of whatever the brands who advertise with AdNectar fork over? (Not sure how these things work...)

May 2014

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