Flutterby™! : a business model for a worthy cause?

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a business model for a worthy cause?

2007-06-29 14:14:18.838205+00 by Dan Lyke 6 comments

Heather Corinna is depressed over Scarleteen. She's having trouble getting advertisers or underwriters. There's a longer rant here but I don't have it in me this morning.

[ related topics: Sexual Culture Consumerism and advertising ]

comments in ascending chronological order (reverse):

#Comment Re: made: 2007-06-29 21:09:10.957779+00 by: meuon

I checked out Scarleteen, Sex Education for the Real World, and it's a pretty well done site, looks like it is using Drupal as a CMS and has good factual bluntly delivered practical content about sex and issues concerning sex. My only point being, it does what it does well, that's not the problem.

The problem is using this site, or a site like it as a source of revenue. Unless it's grant funded or healthcare funded... it's a dead end except as a hobby.

But now for my generic business advice. And I'm much more qualified at business advice in -some- ways than I am at anything else, my only real talent seems to be getting paid well to do things others wish they could get paid for at all.

Something that has -real- value, gets paid for. I'm evaluating a stupidly simple coding project that meets some of my favorite criteria:

  1. a lot (100k+) of people are legally required to prove they have purchased this product/service annually.
  2. The people have a significant budget for purchasing this thing.
  3. It can be purchased and mostly delivered via the internet.
  4. No-one else is doing this well or in a way that really meets the requirements.

Yep, I'll probably be writing PHP code for real money for this (above project) soon.

While Scarleteen has some value in it's content, it's lacking a niche. There are lots of sex advice/education/health content sites on the 'net. Most of it biased one way or another and funded by special interests (drug companies, retailers of cures and/or related stuff). I think it's time to hitch that wagon to a horse with money going parallel path, even if it's not going to the same exact place. Or it's time to build another wagon with the skills you learned from the building of this one.

#Comment Re: made: 2007-07-03 16:20:22.691882+00 by: baylink

Her domain appears to be on hold; I hope she's not depressed enough not to renew it... Anyone know her personally?

#Comment Re: made: 2007-07-03 17:21:20.640077+00 by: Dan Lyke

That'd be someone in the Seattle area. Mars? Shawn?

#Comment Re: made: 2007-07-05 13:20:28.023464+00 by: other_todd

I know her personally. Which domain are we talking about? femmerotic.com is up, scarletletters.com is up (though mostly a placeholder these days), and scarleteen.com is as usual.

#Comment Re: made: 2007-07-05 14:15:17.187488+00 by: Dan Lyke

femmerotic.com was down for me when Jay posted his message. Looks like it's back.

#Comment Re: made: 2007-07-07 00:05:12.37503+00 by: Shawn

Sorry, know of her, but don't know her. And unfortunately, I've lost touch with others in circles that might.