Sponsored Features

The first mention of Sponsored Features came here. They are described as "Features that might cost us too much to offer by ourselves, or touch on areas where we're not as experienced, which we'll be able to offer through partnerships with other companies."

The first sponsored feature will be SMS integration with LiveJournal, sponsored by Amp'd Mobile. Originally, paid users would have seen the sponsorship if they use the feature. Explained:

"And, before anyone gets a chance to bring it up, we'll be honest: paid users are going to see the (unobtrusive!) sponsorship information on pages about sponsored features. We don't consider it to be advertising (though I'm sure some of you might disagree!). Our sponsored features are partnerships with companies who can make it possible for us to offer cool and nifty things we wouldn't be able to do otherwise, and we think that giving them credit is the right thing to do. It's what makes these partnerships attractive, and lets us be able to give you guys more stuff."

However, after the upcry, it was declared otherwise :

"Sponsored 'whatever' are ads -- don't worry, we (at least most of us?) realize sponsorships are the same as ads. and we remember which account levels see ads and which don't."

"Paid users won't see sponsored stuff -- ignore the previous post. paid users won't ever see ads. that's why you paid, and we're not in the business of pissing off paid users. (just in the business of writing misleading posts to paid users, apparently... *sigh*)"

TxtLJ is a Sponsored feature. The Gizmo Project for LJ Talk could also be considered a Sponsored feature.