Mr. Nossik's interview

[dimrub]

Apparently, the English speaking users have stumbled by now across the
now infamous interview given by Mr. Nossik (the Russian text is
available here).
Seeing them trying to battle through the automatic translation, in
order to understand what does the only SUP executive who cares to speak
out, has to say about the Basic accounts cancellation and the ensuing
reaction by the LJ public, I decided to try and whip out a translation
of sorts. Here it is.

- The LJ users, annoyed by the cancellation of the basic accounts,
call for a boycott of your service. How massive can such a boycott
become?
 
- I am not aware of any LJ user of any interest to me, either among my
"friends" or among the usual commenters of my lj, who is going to join in [the
strike]. In general, I am not aware of anyone who takes this all seriously.

Thus, I have reasons to think this is all a marginal thing, similarly
to previous such attempts. Such as calling all the sponsors of LJ and
asking them to remove their ads from LJ.


- And did they do such calls?

- Ofcourse, not. Where would they find an idiot who would call into a
serious company? It's one thing to call a newspaper in hopes of easy publicity, it's another to call a company... They will be
asking questions: "Who are you? Why should we listen to you?"

- So, you think the boycott will not work?
- No, I didn't say that. Anyone can create several hundreds of fake users,
and write in their Ljs: "on March 21st I will be silent in protest".
Then you, the journalists, will be able to list the names of several
hundreds users, that were silent on that day. And say: "it's just the
tip of the iceberg".

- Do you think LJ users have nothing to fret about?

- Let's figure out first, what is a basic account. Once this account was
the major form of offering available at LJ. Due to the poverty of the
founders, lack of funds for development. And just because LJ was not a
business - it was a students' project. The users then were told
directly: even if you pay, you don't get anything in addition to the
basic stuff. The payment for LJ is a donation. You like it? Donate to
it. This model worked from 1999 up to 2005. The basic account is the
heritage of that model and of the mentality that comes with it,
including the idea of banners being evil.

Since then, something
happened - both to LJ and to the bearers of that mentality. Compared to
the functionality of the improved account [it is not clear to which of
the two he refers here], the functionality of the basic account circa
1999 is rather anachronistic [he uses a word that puts the basic
accounts back to the caves - together with cave men]. I don't think we
should propose this anachronism to the new users. It's like, well, the
cell phones of the 90's.

- But surely there are people, who don't need smartphones, they only
need the simplest possible cheapest cell phone... Suppose, I want to
open a blog in LJ, but I hate ads and I can't afford a paid account.
Can I do that?

- Right now you can't have it in LJ. Neither
could you have it on mail.ru, on google or on yahoo. There is no
service in the world, that, while not being a charity, will not be
making money - either in the form of user's fees, or in the form of ads
revenue. This is normal: you don't come to a store asking for free
merchandise.

- So, LJ is the last place on earth, that gave up on charity?

- Actually, the ones who gave up on charity in the form of basic
accounts, is not LJ, but rather its users. For the last two years only
about 10% of the news users register a new account. And in addition, a supple part of these new accounts
are all kinds of fake accounts, created by the already existent users
in order to send spam, to trick the Yandex search engine, to leave
comments for which the user is likely to be banned...
In short, there's no real
demand for basic accounts, this merchandise won't sell, and it was
removed from the shelf. While at that, the current users of plus
accounts are still allowed to convert them into the basic ones (if they
suddenly loose their mind and decide to migrate from a Mercedes to a
Zaporozhets [a brand of Soviet car]).

- So, why not leave an option to loose their mind to the new users as well?

- I think, we should leave them this option, even though during the time
that passed since this change, not a single person declared that his
own right for a basic account has been compromised. Still, I don't
think the users, who came to LJ after March 12, shouldn't be able to
convert their plus accounts into the basic ones. I hope, we will make
the appropriate amendments. However, it is not my decision to make, but
rather that of the company's whole management.

- When can such a decision be made?

- Here's a catch. In the situation in which the company is being blackmailed our hands are tied.

- Why?

- Suppose, I politely tell you, a journalist, that you put a certain coma
in a wrong place. Your natural response is: "yes, indeed" or "let's ask
the editor". But if I tell you "remove that coma, or I'll blow your
face", will you correct your punctuation?
In a situation, where we
are being blackmailed and threats are being made that our business will
be destroyed, there are business related reasons not to reward such a
behavior. It's not just the psychology of a person, who becomes the
more stubborn the more pressure is being made on him. The thing is that
there was never an endeavor, that succeeded by succumbing to a hostile
will. No decision - even the most righteous one - should be made under
pressure.

It seems right to rethink this decision about March 12
in the near days. However, from the point of view of corporate
politics, we will have to wait till the boycott is over. Let it pass.
So that the topic of people's wrath, threats and pressuring is closed.
Then we will discuss the core issue.

By the way, this is not the first time LJ is threatened with boycott for the last few years.

- How effective are those threats?

- They're so effective, that
during the first year of our cooperation with LJ (from October 2006 to
the end of 2007) the size of its audience (which was being cajoled into
leaving LJ, because it's ruled by Kremlin and the KGB) grew twofold,
from 700,000 to almost 1,500,000.

In general, the LJ audience
can be divided into three groups. There is the silent majority, that
uses LJ for its personal needs and couldn't care less about who, where,
using which funds and for what reason created, develops and supports
this service. There is the "positive minority" (in the Russian speaking
community - about 7-10%). These people like LJ, they find it beneficial
for themselves and they wish it to develop. They help us, among other
things - by providing constructive criticism, thanks to which, by the
way, we fix our mistakes. And there is the third group. They
constantly, throughout the history of LJ's existence, come up with
noisy initiatives, the whole goal of which - to harm LJ, its creators,
to bankrupt, to sue, to harm the reputation. Mostly, these people are
driven by the need to attract attention at themselves. And they succeed
at it every time.

Their rhetorics are practically the same -
regardless of whether the person writes in English while in California,
or in Russian while in Moscow. These people at certain times demanded
that Brad Fitzpatrick retires, when he rules LJ single-handedly. They
demanded that every sponsor is contacted and threatened him with court
and reputation damage, if he doesn't stop posting ads in LJ. They
demanded to cancel every single new feature in LJ. They cajoled the
users to leave for the sake of another service for this reason or
another.

It is understood, that journalists need scoops. A
scandal in LJ is a scoop. But nobody will write about all the fixes we
made in LJ's code, about how much we improved it, how many efforts went
into correcting the bugs, into introduction of new features - nobody
cares to write about all that.

The administration went back or
corrected on its decisions, published apologies, reinstated accounts,
that were mistakenly blocked, added new clauses into the TOS...
Everything can be reformed in LJ through a constructive dialog. 

Comments

[akog.livejournal.com]

Ха, а ведь это страшный удар!

Если не трудно

[igorm.livejournal.com]

объясни зачем это крестовый поход против Антона? Ну в чем смысл? Ведь сейчас в сети нет, просто нет лучшей платформы для наших нужд. Ни технически нет, ни тем более с точки зрения сохранения среды общения. Зачем рубить сук на котором так удобно сидеть? Ну ладно, истерия его российских "друзей" объяснима.

Но для чего гнать и гнать волну тебе, avva'e, akoq'ы еще десятку вполне вменяемых людей, которые понимают, надеюсь понимают все негативные последствия этой истерии.

Re: Если не трудно

[dimrub.livejournal.com]

Это странный подход: он держит нас за горло, поэтому давайте спускать ему с рук любую гадость. Но в том-то и дело, что это не так. Никаких особых преимуществ у ЖЖ нет (уж тем более - технических), единственное его преимущество - это люди, которые в нем сидят, но используя пару нехитрых технологий, можно вообще прекратить зависимость от той или иной технологии.

А за истерию самому Антону и скажи спасибо. Как говорится, don't blame the victim. Может, он окстится наконец, или его выпрут, и возьмут кого-то нормального - и то хлеб.

Re: Если не трудно

[http://users.livejournal.com/olushka_/]

А что мешает уйти?

Tы полностью переехал

[igorm.livejournal.com]

на VOX чтобы в своем платном account'е не видеть банеров которые появятся у людей которые откроют новые account'ы после 12 марта? На VOX в котором есть банеры вообще для всех? Ну где логика?

Но это лирика. Правильно ли я понимаю, что сверхзадача это увольнение Антона из СУП?

Re: Если не трудно

[stas]

Поход не против Антона. Это скорее поход Антона и СУПа против экосистемы ЖЖ. Когда новое руководство ЖЖ воспринимает любые предложения как "noisy initiatives, the whole goal of which - to harm LJ, its creators, to bankrupt, to sue, to harm the reputation" - и ведет себя в стиле "я начальник, ты дурак" - то это вызывает неприятные чувства. Не к платформе, а к ним.

Лучшей платформы - вполне возможно, что и нет. Но платформа эта создана не Антоном и не СУПом. Она создана людьми, которые слушали своих клиентов и работали вместе с ними, а не воспринимали их, как досадное недоразумение в деле баннеризации трафика. Пока что они ничего для улучшения этой платформы не предпринимают (а некоторые аспекты - например, комментарии в почту - в последнее время вообще работают в 20% случаев), зато развешивают везде баннеры и публикуют манифесты о том, какие свиньи те, кто их регулярно не смотрит. Сознавать, что новый хозяин экосистемы считает меня свиньей, тоже не очень приятно. Мне как-то больше нравился старый, который считал меня ценным клиентом.

Так старый хозяин

[igorm.livejournal.com]

тебя и продал новому. впрочем это безполезная ремарка: назад уже давно нет дороги.

Но неужели ты считаешь что тот направление движения которое создали решения СУПА вместе с истерией пользователей сервиса может привести куда либо кроме как к разрушению этого самого сервиса?

[panikowsky.livejournal.com]

Бац! 1:0!

[dimrub.livejournal.com]

Вот еще два перевода:

http://darkrosetiger.livejournal.com/373663.html
http://community.livejournal.com/no_lj_ads/78466.html

Мне эта идея не первому в голову пришла :)

[panikowsky.livejournal.com]

"comma", not "coma"

[from-ny.livejournal.com]

loose their mind тоже красиво

[megla.livejournal.com]

пиздел, пиздел, а потом признался, что спороли хуйню, но исправлять не будем, так как нас слишком сильно ругают. Типично русская психология.

[raffal.livejournal.com]

Что Вы знаете о _русской_ психологии ?

[megla.livejournal.com]

Я могу поправить - российская псохология. Я имел ввиду на национальность, а страну проживания.

[yba.livejournal.com]

Ну я знаю о русской психологии и дальше что?

+1

[ilya-dogolazky.livejournal.com]

Именно так, «мы сделали дурость, и хотели было её через недельку исправить, но из-за несознательных элементов, зовущих нас дураками, будем за эту дурость держаться двумя руками, чтобы никто не узнал, что мы дураки». Очень родная логика.

[koalena.livejournal.com]

ты крут
а куда ты это повесил еще?

[dimrub.livejournal.com]

Да больше, собственно, никуда: как только перевел, обнаружил, что есть еще как минимум два перевода :). Только линк кинул организаторше забастовки (beckyzoole)

[koalena.livejournal.com]

Брэду бы кинул, а?

[whitebear.livejournal.com]

http://whitebear.livejournal.com/259740.html

[dimrub.livejournal.com]

У меня платный аккаунт :)

[whitebear.livejournal.com]

Да, но идею следует пропиарить, ИМХО.

[former-regent.livejournal.com]

Как здорово. Можно мне выложить полный текст Вашего перевода (со ссылкой, естественно) в сообществе ljspeaks?

[dimrub.livejournal.com]

Можно, хотя, вроде бы, есть и другие переводы:

http://community.livejournal.com/no_lj_ads/78466.html
http://darkrosetiger.livejournal.com/373663.html
http://furiosity.livejournal.com/472399.html

В общем, выбирайте, какой вам больше нравится.

Проблема рекламы в ЖЖ

[mao-pe-zdun.livejournal.com]

Уважаемое сообщество, есть замечательное предложение по поводу изменения политики текущего владельца ЖЖ в плане графической и анимированной рекламы!

Мое предложение состоит из 2 пунктов:
1). Предложить СУПу полностью заменить графическую и анамированную рекламу в ЖЖ на текстовую до 1-го июля текущего года.
2). В случае не выполнения пункта 1 - предлагаю пользователям устроить акцию: установить себе баннерорезалки и сделать соответствующую пометку у себя в журнале.

Поддержавших это предложение пользователей прошу прорекламировать эту идею у себя в журнале.