On Fri, Aug 8, 2008 at 8:43 PM, Denise Paolucci <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>wrote:
> > > Mark mentioned in another message that I was looking into a la carte > pricing for DW (before it was even DW -- this was back when we were calling > it HypotheticalJournal), and the more I did the numbers, the more it just > flat-out didn't work out to be cost-effective for us. We can offer *more* > userpics if we *don't* offer a la carte pricing than we could if we did, and > the cost of a la carte userpics -- without an associated paid account, I > mean -- would be severely cost-prohibitive. <snip the long explanation part> > > --D *snipping to save space, not b/c I disagree* I don't disagree - again, I *love* explanation of reasons. (Especially when they're logical - my manager at work has a bad tendency of being an idiot, so this is a welcome change *g*.) I also tend to ask a zillion questions, but I hear that's not usually a bad thing *g*. So - next on my list of questions - the idea of off-site userpic hosting (like what a lot of message forums do) - aside from a loss of revenue (which, for a business, is *bad*), has it ever been considered? Or was LJ sure, up front, that userpics would be in such high demand? Next question - you mentioned having 2 levels of paid accts: 1 with [x] amt of features and 1 with [x*n] amt of features and how that's difficult given the current code base. What about paid accounts that have bundles, but they're bundled with different features being scaled? ex: pd acct 1 - standard acct - [x] userpics; [x] phone posts; [x] text posts; [x] image hosting pd acct 2 - more pics acct - [x+n] userpics; [x-n] phones posts; [x-n] text posts; [x-n] image hosting pd acct 3 - more phone acct - [x-n] userpics; [x+n] phones posts; [x-n] text posts; [x-n] image hosting pd acct 4 - more hosting acct - [x-n] userpics; [x-n] phones posts; [x-n] text posts; [x+n] image hosting etc... Or does that get back into your model of 'offering X reduces subsidies of Y'? I ask all these questions b/c a) don't know the answers; b) I'm a 'logic' person, not a business person and business is rarely logical to me; and c) I like finding out the 'why' behind things - it's interesting. *g* I'm not against paying for an account on any service - unless they piss me off. LJ has done that spectacularly with their 'winning' approach to communication and feature roll-out, as well as their 'sparkling' decisions to do things like 'drop' basic accounts. If any of my non-paid accts on LJ suddenly have ads - I'm gone for sure, b/c that's not the site I signed on to originally and it's a horribly bad business model to suddenly start slapping on ads where there weren't ads before. And I'll tell you now, I won't click on any of them, especially since most of them are so gastly-awful and flashy and annoying that it wouldn't matter if they were selling me a direct line to [insert Holy Grail item of choice here] I still wouldn't take them up on the offer b/c their ad is so ugly. I understand the point of banner ads, I do *not* understand why they have to be seizure and migraine inducing in glaring, gross colors. Humans are not that stupid. They don't always go 'ooh! shiny!' and click on the ad. The 'talking' ones are worse. To keep this in line with the current discussion - on LJ, I really don't see the value in giving LJ my money in exchange for removing ads and having the paid features, when I can go to another journal service, not pay anything and only have ads show up in certain places and already get more of the features I want. (LJ's decision to put ads on main journal pages was a HUGELY bad one and makes the site so freakin' ugly.) So, LJ doesn't get my money anymore. -- Highlander II Currently reading: "Furies of Calderon" by Jim Butcher http://www.h2smsk.com http://hdresdenwizard.h2smsk.com http://vanhelsing.h2smsk.com/ http://jamesmarsters.h2smsk.com
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