Personally, I don't like v-gifts, and I have them turned off on LJ, but I think they're probably the least-obnoxious of all the revenue-raising ideas LJ came up with, and if lots of people want them, then you should go for it.
For other revenue-raising ideas, I think you should have profile dragons. $1 buys you an egg, which hatches after a month. For every month that you keep paying your $1 in dragon-feed and maintenance, the dragon grows a bit bigger, and starts doing interesting stuff, until it's...I don't know...breathing fire while doing back-flips and tap dancing. If there's a break in the payment, then the dragon flies off. Maybe you'll be able to catch a glimpse of it on other people's profile pages, where it will settle for a day then move on -- it starts by migrating to somewhere on your flist -- and maybe it will stop by for a visit, but it won't come back permanently until you start coughing up the $1 a month again to feed it.
Damn. I totally wasn't serious when I started that, and now I really want a tap-dancing dragon.
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For other revenue-raising ideas, I think you should have profile dragons. $1 buys you an egg, which hatches after a month. For every month that you keep paying your $1 in dragon-feed and maintenance, the dragon grows a bit bigger, and starts doing interesting stuff, until it's...I don't know...breathing fire while doing back-flips and tap dancing. If there's a break in the payment, then the dragon flies off. Maybe you'll be able to catch a glimpse of it on other people's profile pages, where it will settle for a day then move on -- it starts by migrating to somewhere on your flist -- and maybe it will stop by for a visit, but it won't come back permanently until you start coughing up the $1 a month again to feed it.
Damn. I totally wasn't serious when I started that, and now I really want a tap-dancing dragon.