Content Strike on LJ on Friday, among other things. s

First, before the serious stuff, Happy St Patrick's Day to all who celebrate and/or enjoy it.

Second, gacked from supernatural_tv, Circuit City has Supernatural DVD sets for seasons 1 and 2 for $19.99 each. Cheap! Share the love!

Third, there's a plan afoot to match Terry Pratchett's 500,000 pound donation to Alzheimer's research. (If you're in the US and want to give in dollars using paypal, click here.)

Now, the time-sensitive issue of the day - in a follow-up to LJ's dropping of Basic Personal Accounts, LJ has also removed various Interests from the Popular Interests list includng "bisexuality", "fanfction", "fandom", "boys", "girls", "depression" and "faeries".

Yep, "fandom" no longer exists as a popular interest on LJ.

W?T?F?

What sort of warped business decision led them to think that "fandom" was some sort of danger to the LJ community such that newcomers and interested outsiders and registered users couldn't know that it was popular as an interest 'round these parts?

If you're interested, there's going to be a strike this coming Friday here on LJ. Keep reading for more info.

ONE DAY CONTENT STRIKE

For one day, Friday, March 21, make no posts. Make no comments. Let there be NO new content added to LJ.

SUP obviously does not realize that Basic users have given something of value to them, that it is content that drives the site.

So, for one 24-hour period, from midnight GMT to midnight GMT, let's see how many people we can get to pledge to contribute NO CONTENT.

This will create a permanent downward spike in the daily-posts statistics, a permanent reminder of the power of the userbase.

Full information at The Fox's Den.

SPREAD THE WORD!


<b><center>ONE DAY CONTENT STRIKE</center></b> For one day, <b>Friday, March 21</b>, make no posts. Make no comments. Let there be NO new content added to LJ. SUP obviously does not realize that Basic users have given something of value to them, that it is content that drives the site. So, for one 24-hour period, <a href="http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/fixedtime.html?year=2008&month=3&day=21&hour=0&min=0&sec=0">from midnight GMT to midnight GMT</a>, let's see how many people we can get to pledge to contribute NO CONTENT. This will create a permanent downward spike in the daily-posts statistics, a permanent reminder of the power of the userbase. Full information at <a href="http://beckyzoole.livejournal.com/394548.html">The Fox's Den</a>. <b>SPREAD THE WORD!</b>

ETA at 3:50 PM - the interests seem to be back on the list - I wonder if the griping and threat about Make No Content Friday made a difference. I'm still taking Friday off from content-generation, and also from generating page views on LJ, because if you're here and logged in and doing something like reorganizing your tags or userpics, you're creating page-views, even if you're not making content. Instead, I'm going to spend an hour or so with a list of the RSS feeds I currently read on LJ, and import all of them to GoogleReader. Good to have another option, at least.

Interests

Courtesy of kennahijja, many of the interests (boys, girls, fanfiction, sex) are back on the list of popular interests.

Anyone know if the griping made a difference?

ETA at 430: Semi-related, at least in terms of potentially similar issues is this article in Wired.

Many advertisers, for now, are staying away for fear their ads could inadvertently appear with clips that have nudity, foul language or perhaps criticism of their brand.

"That's a holdover from the TV days," said Jayant Kadambi, chief executive for YuMe Inc., a video startup that has an ad-distribution deal with YouTube owner Google Inc. "If someone runs a TV show that the general audience doesn't like, the advertiser gets yelled at."

The resistance means missed revenue opportunities for millions of hours of online video views, even as sites scramble to meet demand from the growing number of advertisers dabbling with video ads on the Internet to complement their television campaigns.

...

Google has been promoting new video formats and nontraditional campaigns to make money off its $1.76 billion purchase of YouTube in 2006. But it has been treading carefully for fear of alienating users and advertisers at the Internet's most popular video-sharing site.

Marketers who wish to advertise on YouTube, for instance, can choose to have ads appear only with video from Warner Music Group Corp. and other major content providers that have deals with Google.

In other words, Google is thinking through the implications of ads on YouTube - not just with a goal of GETTING$REALLYQUICKLY, but also in not alienating their users - ie both those that generate content, and those who watch/review content.

Huh, interesting perspective there, Team Google!