Where the hell did you go?

   If you dropped by over the last three days and wondered what was going on, I apologise for temporarily disappearing. I am painfully aware that making your blog inaccessible for a period of time is in the top two or three things a blogger can do wrong. However, I felt the need to back up from the blogosphere for a bit while a little tempest in a teapot played itself out here on AOL.
   You see, last Tuesday morning, the Majority of AOL journals owners awoke to find a new addition to their blogs. When the free AIM journals were announced last May, AOL made a big show of telling their paying customers that they had an advantage over AIM journals in that the paid AOL journals had no advertising banners on them. No longer. As of November 15 of this year, all AOL USA journals have banner advertising along the top.
   I know, you don't see an ad above my journal. I am a member of the AOL international community, and we, so far, have not been affected. I am sure that will only last so long. Once the tees have been dotted and the eyes have been crossed, and agreements are in place regarding what proportion of the ad revenue will go to AOL Canada, and AOL UK, we will see those ads as well.

   The reaction in the AOL blogging community has been predictable. A rapid and vehement response from the journalers hereabouts has the message boards buzzing, and the membership rolls of Blogger, and other free blogging services swelling with AOL refugees. I don't know if the high uppity-ups at AOL really had any idea how big a deal this would be to many of the seasoned journalers here.
   A selection of comments from around the service:

   I have been sickened and dismayed since 6:15 this morning when I entered my journal and found that it had been defiled in my absence. I have been grieving the loss of a sacred space today, when normally I would be painting and enjoying my life. I have notified AOL through every means available, and have written a couple of letters to higher ups. Remember not that long ago they asked me to participate in that article for the Washington Post.
   I believe that AOL thinks that this will be a tempest in a teapot, and soon we will all go back to writing and making them look good, and they will continue to collect ad revenues from the signs pinned to our backs.
   I have thought long and hard today and feel that I have to make a stand against something that is ugly and wrong, even though it may cost me the support system I have found here. You all mean so much to me and have become my surrogate family, and that is what makes this decision so difficult.
   I will not write in this journal again until the banner ads have been removed, and I will be blogging solely at my blogspot journal. http://judithheartsong.blogspot.com/
                                                  -Judith Heartsong

i am angered that ANYONE at aol decided my thoughts, my life, my words are for sale

i am angered because i feel i've been forced to make a decision .. to take a stand against something i feel is wrong

the part that upsets me the most is that from the VERY beginning of aol Journals, we here at JLand have been treated like puppies attempting to play with "The Big Dogs" .. and they refused to let us play .. we didn't have REAL blogs .. they were only aol Journals .. anyone who was a part of the corporate aol giant couldn't have anything worthy of reading

because of my aol journal, i made the front page of The Washington Post .. proud that my journal had finally received some form of recognition outside of aol .. gathering from my email, guestbook and comments, i have a large number of readers who are not aol members .. they found me via the internet, some google search on lung cancer, or on some of the medical procedures i've undergone .. and now because of some decision some idiot at aol made, they've sold my journal as advertising space and pissed me off in the process
                                                  -His1Desire

   Criminals snuck into my extremely PERSONAL journal pages last night and sprayed their graffiti across the top of my PERSONAL PAID for web pages without my permission.
   This intrusion is unacceptable, unforgivable, and unbelievable.
   I am completely disguested by this corporate decision.
   I do not enjoy being blinded by Quizno's and Bank of America Ads. Their mere presense on my pages ruins everything I have put my heart and soul into.
   My journal has become a cheap flashing banner page for AOL.
   I abhor this and the beautiful thing, is that there is a grand solution. http://intheshadowoftheiris.blogspot.com/
                                                  -justaname4me2

   My eyes have been yanked wide open by the realization that while WE pay for the service, WE are not the customers that AOL cares about.  They are concerned about their Corporate Advertising Customers.  Here we were offering our silly little monthly subscription and crumbcake, while they were pimping us out for $$$$ contracts.
                                                  -Dornbrau

   I can fully understand why everyone is so upset over this issue. AOL is selling content created by their members to their advertisers, without any recompense coming the other way. Many other ad driven blogging services offer their members some modicum of control over what ads appear on their blogs, and often the bloggers themselves receive payment, or credit for click-through on those ads. Not so here on AOL. The ads here are huge banners spanning the entire top of the journal page, and most of them feature some sort of garish, distracting animation. Many of them are ads for services which are wildly unpopular, like Bank of America, for example.
   A grassroots movement is afoot in an attempt to pressure AOL into removing the ads. Unfortunately, it will be a futile attempt. AOL desperately needs the ad revenue these banners represent, and the number of potential members that will be lost over this issue will almost certainly be negligible. They also have the confidence that their journaling tool is, by far, the easiest to use of any available. Many bloggers who leave to set up new residence on Blogspot, or Xanga, or Livejournal, will come flooding back in short order when they realise how much more difficult those tools are for the computer neophyte to use.

   What am I going to do? Probably nothing, at least in the short term. The ads are not affecting me yet. My preference is not to use AOL as my ISP. I had, in fact, left for Sympatico.ca several years ago. I returned to AOL at the urging of my wife and son, who prefer the ease of use of the e-mail system and organised content here. As well, the parental controls work very well for the sake of my eleven year old son. I am tied to AOL right now, for their benefit.
   I had recently been considering moving my blogging efforts to a different service, but for completely unrelated reasons. I am still considering it, but I don't do anything quickly, and a number of other puzzle pieces would need to fall into place before that happened. So here I am. I am sorry I disappeared this week. I promise I won't do it again. At least, not without a significant amount of advance warning.

tags:Blogs,Blogging