The End of Early Adopter Accounts
Hello Everyone!
We have (finally) ended the distribution of Early Adopter accounts at Blurty. That means we are entering the next phase of development. All new accounts will be Free Accounts from here forward. We will be adding a tiered account system in May. That means that those with Free Accounts who want all of the bells and whistles and extra features will have the opportunity to get higher level accounts once they are introduced in the next month.
We want to thank all of you for your help during the testing phase of Blurty and, of course, anyone who already has an Early Adopter account will keep that account for as long as they choose to remain a member.
Starting with the change over to Free Accounts, we are also going to begin strictly enforcing the 18 and over policy. If you have an Early Adopter account, we won't be going back and checking everyone, but if you sign up for a new Free Account, we will require that you are over 18 years old, as the rules say. Thanks for understanding!
I guess that's all for now. There are a lot of good things coming, stay tuned.
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 goldchaosdragon
2003-04-19 23:26
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Congrats on finishing up testing. ^_^
I do still have issues with the friends limits on free user accounts. I can think of three or four ways you can entice people to set up paid accounts without having to put restrictions on the basic service, which would also make Blurty the most versatile journalling service I've seen online (and hook in even MORE Livejounal refugees than we have NOW).
Might I suggest:
1.Poll support for paid users (this is a paid feature on LiveJournal that sounds pretty useful, and all it needs is some cgi scripting)
2. Modest space for image hosting beyond userpics (this would work even better if there was a generic style that allowed for a large background image. Sacrificing a single gig on harddrive space to offer a single megabyte of image hosting could hook a thousand paid users-- after all, the image hosting would be as reliable as the journal itself, so all the Early Adopters with image-intensive layouts would have a chance to host their images with Blurty and not have to worry about extra fees, server blackouts, and broken links.) Diaryland uses this as an enticement and it works famously. And $25 x 1000= $25000 per gig set aside for image hosting per year. If you wanted, you could even institute a GOLD program that provides more image hosting space for a little more money per year.
3. Advanced statistic tracking. Y'all already have in place stuff to track stats, and a lot of people have expressed an interest in tracking the number of people who view their journals. A little rearrangement of the stats-tracking system is all that's needed, and add in a little cgi and you could offer the counters a lot of people have been clamouring for. (And to tie in with the GOLD program idea, you could offer a variety of counter styles for people with a GOLD subscription)
4. The ever-successful invite code tactic: I figure Blurty will be switching to this in the future to limit growth. I'd suggest adding in a "Lite" version of buying invite codes, so that people who don't want to pay a full price year's service Paid Account to get a journal can just buy the codes for a more modest fee and have a Free User style journal.
5. Paypal donations and donation widgets. For those people who would love to support the community but don't have the green to pay the full subscription fee all the time. A special donators-only mood icon set (since we're all trying to get more mood icon sets ANYWAY) would be a nice incentive to get people to donate. Webcomics on various corners of the 'net are able to rake in a few thousand dollars a year on systems like these, with very little expense to themselves other than time and computer space. (It varies according to popularity of course)
These are just a few of my suggestions to avoid having to cut basic service (being able to write in one's own journal and read other peoples' journals) to get people to buy Paid Accounts. I'm sure since the support team is full of inventive people y'all can come up with more ideas.(Reply to this) (Thread) |
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| HELLO!
(Anonymous)
2003-04-21 17:23
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Oh my God your stupid little stats page makes everything right, how do you know that those ages are right, I know a lot of people who are minors and they don't give a f*ck about whether they go on a site as 18 or not most of those people are probably under 18 (Reply to this) (Thread) |
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slice
2003-04-22 12:03
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Wow you people really are a bit obsessed with underage people using Blurty. Does it really matter though, it's the internet, just about everybody on it is fake. Look at those really old people saying that they are 14 so they can possibly meet their victim and rape or murder them. Also the young teens saying they are 18 or over in order to go to "adult sites." I don't see why people younger than 18 shouldn't be able to use a reliable journal service, like Blurty, that doesn't have to be paid for, since obviously people under 18 don't have credit cards. Adults are getting a bit too greedy these days. I hope none of you have children. (Reply to this) (Thread) |
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slice
2003-04-22 12:08
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You people are so fucking idiotic it disgusts me. I know that people over 18 would like an area of their own but who honestly cares if they share it with adolescences. It's not like you're sharing your damn username and journal with them. They have their own little journal and lives to write about, why would they give a damn about yours. Honestly though. You people are freaking idiots. (Reply to this) (Thread) |
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poeticdesire
2003-04-23 04:40
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Alrighty, time to make my own little blog I think, to discuss points made and things in my head. I'll probably forget half of them anyway, but I'll get down what I can. And you'll have to forgive me if I'm beating a dead horse with some of my comments and whatnot.
Alright, first thing.
RPG's.
I roleplay, myself, on numerous things. From Celebrity to Harry Potter. Some things are obviously not real, i.e. Harry Potter, though there are some idiots out there who'll go "ur not r34lly HaRrY P0tT32 r u?" and stupid crap like that, and honestly those ones need their heads checked. Celebrity is a little harder to discern, and as for the disclaimer, sometimes it's easily forgotten.I admit, I've forgotten the disclaimer myself on a couple of my journals, and recently went back and added it when I realized. Yes, a disclaimer is definately a must for RPG communities where you play as the actual celebrity, and the majority of the communities I've seen have one. There is also a form of celebrity RP out there called 'PB' or 'Played By' in a sense, where you use celebrity pics..though it's hard to discern those, honestly, because a TON of RPs, and not just celebrity ones, use celebrity pics for characters. Then there's the AU genre, or Alternate Universe, where it's played multiple ways with celebrity names and faces. Of course, those too would need disclaimers. However, RPs usually make up a very large part of journal services that I've seen, and I don't think they should be discredited or tossed out. Though it is rather annoying to come across RPers that teeny-type and use letters and numbers to replace words, and then claim to be 'mature RPers,' but that's an entirely seperate subject.
Next.
18- enforcement.
It's a good idea, quite honestly. There ARE multiple journal sites out there where the rule is 13+. But Blurty isn't one of them. www.livejournal.com , www.deadjournal.com , www.aboutmylife.com , and numerous others have 13+. So it's not like you underagers out there don't have anywhere to go. I haven't exactly seen many good arguements FOR underagers, mostly flames trying to shoot down those pro-enforcement. Which is why they want underagers out, since a good lot can't seem to act mature enough to stay. To rant on, let me hit on the English. This is a journal site. You use it as a journal, whether it's for yourself or a roleplay character. Would you write in a paper journal 'c47z rool d00d, I'm so 4 u. R u g01ng to th3 d4nc3?' and the like? Or would you turn that sort of language in to your teacher? NO! So why the bloody hell write it here? It's idiotic and immature. And annoying as hell to read(not to mention type).
Third.
Friends limit.
Honestly, not a good idea to me. Ok, I understand the icon limit. I'm not disputing that. But the friends' limit is just a tad too far. Yes, there ARE journal sites that don't limit friends, and yes, you could use the whole "don't like it, leave" arguement, but a good portion WILL leave. And as I stated in a comment before, the free users are the ones that will spread the word to others and bring other people here. Then, those free users and who they bring will use the service, and, if they find the offered services to their liking, may decide to pay for better benefits. You need to entice them, give them a taste so to speak, of what they can get with a free account. Limiting their friends doesn't do that, it turns them away. People will pay for the service sooner or later if they like it. But they need to like it first.
Next point.
Blurty Lite.
In other words, paying for a code. Good idea if they get extra benefits, i.e. a Blurty Lite user has the same benefits as an Early Adopter account, and only pays a buck or two. Or if Blurty insists on the Friends Limit, give a Lite user unlimited friends, 4-5 icons(one or two less than an EA account), and the ability to create/maintain a community. So the lite account would pretty much have a good selection of options, minus layout or mood creation and such.
Ok, I think I had more to say, but I forgot it. ^.^; So, yeah. I'm done.(Reply to this) (Thread) |
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