They are a Russian company, and this is a Russian interview for Russian readers. Russia is the target audience for both this interview and LJ service these days. We non-Russian users aren't a complete afterthought, but I think it helps make things less fuzzy if we remind ourselves that we are now the foreign users of the service, not their ideal users--we're not the ones they're crafting spin for, and we're not the ones who are going to get first taste of info and developments.
The Aussie users who grumble about all the seasonal decor being US-centric? The Brits who wonder why all the holidays are US holidays? They're us. No, no, further! That Greek user who didn't find out about site changes in '05 until someone translated the news comm post? He's us. We are Spartakus!
(I'm less goofy after coffee. One day I'll learn to save commenting until that point. But that day is not today!)
Anyhow, when igrick talks about doing away with advertising in context of Russian/CIS users, he talks about advertising as an alienating thing, and how they can generate revenue without it, offering the example of the self-promo service users can buy. He's selling and spinning there: "We know our users dislike ads, and we're listening, and let me mention a couple of our value-added services..." He doesn't bother to spin for US users (since the article's not for us), so when he talks about advertising in context of US users, it's about function--how all of these competing services with alternate forms of monetization have sprung up, and how on-site ads don't work for the US half of the userbase anyway. That suggests (to me; YMMV, of course) that the truth lies in between: LJ thinks it's onto better ways to monetize in general, and once they've got it nailed down, that's going to be a sales pitch.
tl;dr - The Russians are getting it first, because they're the target audience. Also, coffee good, morning bad.
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2012-01-01 09:08 pm (UTC)The Aussie users who grumble about all the seasonal decor being US-centric? The Brits who wonder why all the holidays are US holidays? They're us. No, no, further! That Greek user who didn't find out about site changes in '05 until someone translated the news comm post? He's us. We are Spartakus!
(I'm less goofy after coffee. One day I'll learn to save commenting until that point. But that day is not today!)
Anyhow, when igrick talks about doing away with advertising in context of Russian/CIS users, he talks about advertising as an alienating thing, and how they can generate revenue without it, offering the example of the self-promo service users can buy. He's selling and spinning there: "We know our users dislike ads, and we're listening, and let me mention a couple of our value-added services..." He doesn't bother to spin for US users (since the article's not for us), so when he talks about advertising in context of US users, it's about function--how all of these competing services with alternate forms of monetization have sprung up, and how on-site ads don't work for the US half of the userbase anyway. That suggests (to me; YMMV, of course) that the truth lies in between: LJ thinks it's onto better ways to monetize in general, and once they've got it nailed down, that's going to be a sales pitch.
tl;dr - The Russians are getting it first, because they're the target audience. Also, coffee good, morning bad.