Comments on: Has this Affiliate taken things too far? Thoughts.

By: Team Tutorials

Team Tutorials — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 18:41:40 +0000

It was actually suggested to me to create a site for the victims to posts their comments. I just couldn’t do it. I don’t care how much money it would make at some point we have to have morals.

By: My Business Blog » Monetizing a Tragedy

My Business Blog » Monetizing a Tragedy — Sun, 03 Jun 2007 15:15:39 +0000

[...] a Tragedy Posted By: admin Published in News 3Jun Stuart made an interesting observation today about this website which is an obvious splog attempting to turn a profit off of the recent VA Tech [...]

By: brian chappell

brian chappell — Thu, 26 Apr 2007 19:46:18 +0000

My mom sent me an email at 9:45am before all this really got leaked to the press. Being a webmaster at heart I went and checked on domain names, pretty much all of them at that time were available. I could have bought all of them but I couldn’t. Its just messed up to capitalize on a tragedy of this nature.

By: nicholas kamau

nicholas kamau — Mon, 23 Apr 2007 18:24:37 +0000

i am sorry but i would stoop this low, truth is this it seems people are just in for the money these days. instead i would build a more informative website with things like personal self defense.safe alternatives to self defense. things along that line.\
its not stooping low,please oil companies are killing thousands around the world so that we in america can have cheap oil, oil companies have a shitload of profit that just make us look silly, its not stooping low its being capitalistic

By: Brandon Hopkins

Brandon Hopkins — Wed, 18 Apr 2007 22:32:55 +0000

Looks like I missed the boat, it’s just a parked page now.

By: Edwin

Edwin — Wed, 18 Apr 2007 17:44:35 +0000

Turned into a Godaddy parking site…
So what do we think about that as cashing in on a tragedy

By: Mark B

Mark B — Wed, 18 Apr 2007 15:25:32 +0000

The blogger has posted a response to everyone who is bashing him:
http://www.vashootings.com/?p=37

By: VA Shootings

VA Shootings — Wed, 18 Apr 2007 13:48:35 +0000

We couldn’t help but notice the plethera of ads on your site passing judgement about our site.

Kettle Black

By: WebmasterX

WebmasterX — Wed, 18 Apr 2007 13:20:24 +0000

“Would you stoop this low?”

You just did. Now if you had written about this touchy subject on a page with no links / banners / or other ads that made you money it would be different, but you didn’t.

By: The Dino

The Dino — Wed, 18 Apr 2007 08:20:07 +0000

People are always looking for gap in them market and this page could find it but I dont think he is going to profit on it because if there are people like you and me than they will not click any affiliate links anyway.

By: D. Psyko

D. Psyko — Wed, 18 Apr 2007 07:14:28 +0000

I thought I had posted earlier on this topic i guess it was either deleted or get sent to spam.

I saw the site earlier when it had an adsense ad on the right. I don’t think he did anything wrong.

for a site that was “profiting” from the tragedy I thought he should have had more ads up.

Why should news agencies make all the money? As you should know bad news makes money. His idea got me thinking.

By: JT

JT — Wed, 18 Apr 2007 06:03:53 +0000

For all of you outraged: This is different from Fox News or CNN or ABC News… how, exactly? They’re running ads, running promo’s for their other shows, and so on.

Seriously, I’d like to know.

By: Rafa

Rafa — Wed, 18 Apr 2007 04:09:23 +0000

Ismailax.com was also taken…thatÂ´s what the guy had written on his arm.

By: Rafa

Rafa — Wed, 18 Apr 2007 04:07:01 +0000

Domains can go live almost immediately after you register them.

By: MM

MM — Wed, 18 Apr 2007 03:59:09 +0000

The domain names with the shooter’s name and every variation of it were all bought today.

There’ll be more of that garbage coming!

By: Steve K.

Steve K. — Wed, 18 Apr 2007 02:12:59 +0000

The affiliate ad was a bit over the top, but how is this different from foxnews.com, cnn.com, et.al. switching to their highest CPM ads in their inventory during their heavy traffic times?

He also was covering several different sources and was – at least appears to be – rewriting the stories into his own words prior to the links — not a simple copy/paste job.

But like I said, the affiliate ad was over the top, but I don’t see much wrong with the rest. And it looks like all advertising is gone now.

By: Stuart

Stuart — Wed, 18 Apr 2007 01:37:52 +0000

Interesting thoughts so far guys, keep em coming

By: Monetizing a Tragedy » Net Business Blog

Monetizing a Tragedy » Net Business Blog — Wed, 18 Apr 2007 01:28:03 +0000

[...] made an interesting observation today about this website which is an obvious splog attempting to turn a profit off of the recent VA Tech [...]

By: Bill

Bill — Tue, 17 Apr 2007 23:49:20 +0000

I have a different take, it’s a free market. I feel that a person should have the right to enter the free market in any barrier they so wish.

With that said; it works both ways, while a person has the right to enter the free market, the free market has the right to not do business with that person on any principle the wish to recite.

Believe it or not the free market can govern itself, if enough people just opt not to do business with someone for whatever reason (in this case because they are obviously trying to capitalize on the misfortune of others) the that free market attempt fails and that person goes away.

By: Andrew Johnson

Andrew Johnson — Tue, 17 Apr 2007 23:45:16 +0000

I turned on FOX news yesterday literly hours, or less, after the shootings and they already had flashy animations running on the side. The Virgina Tech logo and “massacre” with a red crosshairs in the background.

Is a news blog less tasteful because it has an affiliate link as opposed to a newspaper article saturated with PPC ads to mortgage offers?

By: Wealth Building Lessons

Wealth Building Lessons — Tue, 17 Apr 2007 22:50:30 +0000

of course, there’s no such thing as bad publicity and by linking to his site, you’re making him famous!

By: Scott

Scott — Tue, 17 Apr 2007 22:36:00 +0000

Yo, Screw that mofo. If he didn’t wnat to make money it wouldn’y have been an affiliate link.

But on the other hand,

Money is money

By: Where Does Your Desire for Money End and Your Ethics Start? » Vince Cordic’s Internet Marketing Tactics

Tue, 17 Apr 2007 21:46:02 +0000

[...] occured there are of course certain individuals who are capitalizing on the news. Some people are outright disgusted by sites like VAShootings.com. Myself, I wouldn’t go as far as trying to make a quick buck on [...]

By: say what?

say what? — Tue, 17 Apr 2007 21:36:42 +0000

hmm…

I dont see what that blogger did as wrong?. You got one commentor saying he cashed in on the Sadam hanging and no one said anything. What?..is it because Sadam was considered a “bad-guy” so that gets a pass?

Another commentator noted that doing a porn site is okay, give the people what they want, with that idea, isnt the blogger giving the people a chance to give flowers to the slain victims? Maybe the ones who are really upset at this particular blogger are just mad that they didnt think of the idea first.

The blog itself is just doing is doing an ongoing coverage of the story. “…oOoOh, thats sooo bad..and horrible…” oh please, and you think giving people what they want with “porn” isnt bad? how porn can potentially ruin relationships and mess up people psychology…

All the more to the blogger, its not like he’s peddling child porn, he’s just doing coverage of the story.

By: Stephen Ralph

Stephen Ralph — Tue, 17 Apr 2007 18:24:57 +0000

If you ever have to ask yourself whether what you’re doing online is ethical than it’s clearly not. This is not.

It’s really pathetic what some marketers will do to earn cash. That includes peddling porn, that whole shady generic RX industry, payday (usury) loans and a whole bunch of other immoral businesses.

By: Mark

Mark — Tue, 17 Apr 2007 14:48:54 +0000

I’d have to say that’s over the line. In regard to moneymaker’s comment “can’t even make a porn blog”, not that I have – but I wouldn’t have a problem with it. Loads of people search for porn and I generally don’t see a problem with providing something that people want.

However, this guy isn’t doing that. He is just cashing in…..

However, I made $60 on adsense from hosting the Saddam hanging video on my website. Does that make me bad? There were thousands of searches for that!

By: Stuart

Stuart — Tue, 17 Apr 2007 12:53:15 +0000

Done

By: Mark from Bloglyne.com

Mark from Bloglyne.com — Tue, 17 Apr 2007 12:38:59 +0000

Hey Stuart – I have to say that I agree with Adam.

I would have Bumped the article but you have a “follow” on the link to the guys website. Which is allowing both of you to “profit” by generating traffic to the site based on the article. So, no Bump from me until you change that…

I get that you want to write about this topic, and to me that is fine, but don’t supply the guy who you are criticizing with extra link backs & traffic… there must be a better way…

By: Jeremy Steele

Jeremy Steele — Tue, 17 Apr 2007 12:31:42 +0000

How the hell is that domain already functioning? Must have been one he owned already…

By: daminc

daminc — Tue, 17 Apr 2007 12:02:27 +0000

such an asshat!