A more wholesome irritation: LIVEJOURNAL

[tamaranth]

Paid members will never see any advertising on LiveJournal as long as they're logged in to their account.

Ha ha ha ha ha <,/cynical laughter>

"A few weeks ago, we told you about a new tool from Snap.com that provides visual previews on external links within your journal. Based on your positive response, we've enabled these graphics for Basic and Plus users."

Now, one might think from this that someone logged into a permanent account wouldn't get those bloody irritating popups 'visual previews. But NO!



What they really mean is, 'Paid members will never see any advertising on LiveJournal as long as they don't venture near a Basic or Plus account.'

Yes, I know there is a way to switch it off but I shouldn't have to.

And even better! I DO have them switched off. It just doesn't have any effect!

This is so much more rewarding (not to mention cheaper) than getting upset with my solicitor.Who is unaccountably not answering her phone.

Comments

[dougs.livejournal.com]

The mechanism provided for disabling them throughout the site relies on cookies ... and therefore fails when you switch from Firefox to Opera ... or go and use the spare machine ... or log on from a client site ...


... or clear your cookies...

Grrr...

I've commented to news and submitted something to suggestions, we'll see what happens.

[tamaranth.livejournal.com]

No, their mechanism DOESN'T WORK. If I view a paid account with links I don't seem to get the popups -- if I view a non-paid account with links, up they pop. Same session, same machine, same cookies, same sound of grinding teeth ...

[zotz]

Are these adverts in the usual sense? Who's getting paid for them being there?

And, in any case, if they are adverts then they're being placed by the users who include the links rather than by LJ - and LJ really have no control over whether people decide to place adverts. I posted a couple myself recently (for a concert I'm promoting), one of which you probably saw, so their comment clearly has to be seen as applying only to adverts accepted and placed by Livejournal themselves.

[tamaranth.livejournal.com]

Are these adverts in the usual sense? Who's getting paid for them being there?

It's possible that LJ are offering the service out of the goodness of their hearts. Ditto SNAP.

A link is NOT the same as a popup 'preview' of what's behind that link. And LJ's statement that one can turn these things off is simply not correct.

[zotz]

So who's getting paid? Do you know of money changing hands? There are a great many loss-leaders on the net, and the actual costs of implementing look like being trivial, so it's not completely obvious to me that these (however irritating) are any sort of advert. If you know any more than that, then I'm all ears. Actually, forget about it. If you don't know, then I'll look it up myself.

A link is NOT the same as a popup 'preview'

And preview is not the same as an advert, unless certain other conditions are satisfied.

In any case, I have to say that I'm not getting these at all, and that's despite having a quick trawl back though my friends page and your LJ looking for external links.

[bugshaw.livejournal.com]

I see some here if you want to try and look:
http://community.livejournal.com/edinburgers/1545572.html

[zotz]

Interesting. They don't appear if I'm looking at that as part of my friends page, but if I look at that entry directly or as part of the edinburgers journal they do. So something is stopping them, but it's not applying as widely as it should.

[tamaranth.livejournal.com]

Your point about who's benefitting (financially or otherwise) is a good one -- albeit a secondary concern. If no one is paying for this to happen or getting paid when it does, then is it advertising?

Does not stop it being BLOODY ANNOYING, and I am going to have to be very careful which journals I read at werk (currently no interwebs at home) -- have just had a 'polite enquiry' from boss as to why a brightly-coloured pop-up was displaying on my screen!

As per your later comments, it does seem to behave a little differently depending on whether I view a post via my f-list or not. Still, not well-implemented.

[tamaranth.livejournal.com]

a silly little shiney thing designed specifically to increase awareness of Snap.com" (http://performancing.com/tools/3-reasons-why-snap-preview-is-ruining-your-blog-and-hurting-your-readership)

[zotz]

Does not stop it being BLOODY ANNOYING

Indeed. There are plugins to block it for Firefox, and other methods too. I think I'm going to have to investigate them. I also think I read somewhere that completely blocking Snap's own site might work, but I'll have to check that again. And yes, LJ's optout will have to be improved a lot too.

[msilverstar]

Try rejecting images from snap.com in AdBlock or Firefox's preferences. Makes those manky little buggers go right away.

[aca.livejournal.com]

Why would you think that? They're not adverts.

[tamaranth.livejournal.com]

you mean LJ has put them there for the good of my soul?

Agreed, it's hard to work out who (if anyone) is benefitting from the popups (apart from, allegedly, Snap.com for teh shiny): but DOEZ NOT WANT they are pushing content at me that I have tried to opt out of.

[aca.livejournal.com]

See, the opt out is to stop them from being displayed on links from your journal. If you view someone elses journal it is their settings that will dictate whether they're used or not. Much like any other web site which chooses to use Snap previews.

As for their opting out mechanism, as Doug says it's cookie based, so useless.

Adblock recipe is here:
http://www.ofzenandcomputing.com/zanswers/593

[aca.livejournal.com]

To clarify, the first is the LJ View Options tickybox, the second is the snap.com cookie toggle. :)

[andrewducker]

Good Lord. Just noticed that it didn't affect pages not on my friends view.

But then it turns out that AdBlock stops it anyway.