January 16, 2001

  • Updated!


    We all pretty much agree that Xanga probably isn’t currently making much money for its sponsors, don’t we? And some of us have observed that one, if not the main, intention for the creation of this weblog may have been to generate a complex of Reviews that would promote commerce and somehow (???) return revenue to the sponsors. If so, that has not transpired thus far.


    Or is something else planned? Could it be that after Xanga’s probation passes and when the community is sufficiently large, that the sponsors will rollout their cash cow? If so, what form of enterprise might that be?


    Here’s some ideas:


    They post more annoying, but more lucrative, banners.


    And as Dienekes observes: You log until the point of no return and on your 20,000th post you're informed that *You have 10 free posts left. However, for $19.95 per month...*


    Then they create a *Geocities Plus*-type program that both offers new features as inducements and removal of other features (e.g., new annoying banners) as value-added by subtraction..


    What new features could the Xanga sponsors provide…for a small charge? Perhaps they are reading us to find out what we want, what we might pay for.


    How about archived backup of your journal on a special mirror site? Should anything happen to Xanga (hackers bust its frail portal, Bianca is kidnapped..oh,no!; wait! Bianca is the new Patty Hearst: she just took Genius prisoner, etc.), the mirror site remains intact and available to you to recover your writings, for a small fee.


    Would anyone be willing to cough up a buck or two a month to have their *comments* collected and available on a special-access comment page. Every time you make a comment on another log, your comment page is likewise updated with that comment. I well know that some Xangites are great commentators and enjoy it more than even journaling. Their real effort would lie in such an anthology of comments. Also, I have, and I have noticed that some others have, occasionally made a new journal entry out of a comment that was considered particularly worthwhile. So comments can sometimes be considered thought nuggets. Sometimes, too, you just want to remember some special comment you made to someone—but can’t remember where to find it. The point being that if your comments are part of you and you value saving them, you might....So..hmm.


    Might they package some sort of chat or *Human Click* type functionality for those willing to dish out a little currency for more current interaction and control? Provide and allow javascript applets as a thrown-in bonus?


    Or…now here’s an idea…might they not open an *eProp store* where you can obtain actual merchandise for accumulated eProps? Of course, like carnival games where the cost of a chance is often greater than the prize even if you win on the first try, the *donation* you make to *activate* your eProps will exceed the worth of the token merchandise—but who cares? Getting an *I’m an eProp whore* or *I’m an eProp pimp* button for one’s efforts and a little cash is just overly compelling!


    Paying for vanity? What if the Xanga lords would offer you the chance to view your *ratings* like never before? Well, first, return to you the overall daily rating chart along with individual post ratings. But not stop there: give you stats on who has overall over time given you the most eProps and most comments, charts to plot your daily *progress*, rates (your eProps and comments as a % of total eProps and comments) to give you a sense of weight...Nauseating? Perhaps, but that won't dissuade vanity. This, by the way, would avoid that characterization of being a popularity contest since it would be a private paid-for popularity *report* and not everyone would be playing *the game*. Until, of course, someone posted their *popularity report* as a log, and then the games, no doubt, would begin again...Of course, Celeste and Agrochick already know who are their most popular patrons (themselves? hehe) and so would not have that need of this service.


    Yes, and my favorite: Would you pay a small one-time or occasional fee to see who's who in Xangaland? Hey, the founders know who they give cookies to. So they could allow us to sort members by held cookie source and thus discover what *members* are posting from the same location. So when you discover that bianca and ylvas are posting from the same PC, do you conclude that bianca is laying low on the farm? Or when you see that heresmy2cents and holly green are also sharing a common source--is that a tryst or has Holly broken our trust? (sorry, Holly, but I would just love to imagine hearing you say: *here's my 2 cents, and here's my 2 cents, now here's my 2 cents...* in a spirit of double entendre, hehe).


    Thanks to tjenius for some attention paid to a journal competitor (oh,no! u mean that xanga isn't unike?) and what they are doing to feed their servers: livejournal.


    Or will the kind sponsors just keep providing us indefinitely with no cash-cow angle but new features forever for free? If so, let us bow to the Enlightened Ones.

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