Personally I think while hack's idea is great, it's never actually going to get done by any of us because it requires a shit ton of work. I could be wrong and hack and a group of others could be working on it as we speak.
I still think it'd be much easier to set up a profitable site and then use those profits to donate to a charity that the participants agree/vote on.
I'm sure eli/smaxor would be happy to throw us a decent offer from their networks which would mean somebody can't just run off with all of the earnings.
Webair could sponsor the hosting (or I can just pay for it) and the $9 reg fee is not an issue.
To make things a bit more interesting we could turn it into a bit of a case study and then people from the b/s/t can donate links etc. I'm good for 1mill xrumer links to point at tier 2 and tier 3 shit.
I like this, too. Also, it would be stupid not to organize it as a case study, just sayin.
It is definitely worthwhile to get excited about this, but if it's going to be a legit group effort then it will probably see more success with more adequate planning. And we should have some legit (as possible) votes. Everyone getting a say (a vote) will encourage involvement and better planning / organization.
The digital amber alerts idea is admirable but there are some other things to think about, too. Disregarding the fact that this apparently already exists, even a similar idea could be problematic because we could potentially wind up distracting people away from the better service which will help find the kids faster, as opposed to driving more people to be aware. If this is the direction this goes in then IMHO the best thing to do would be to get in touch with the people that run that shit and ask how we can help. Plus they may have resources to help get something like the amber alert banner ads idea off the ground. Imagine logging into your e-mail and seeing missing kids in your area? I forget who wrote that originally but that idea is absolutely sick.
If we do get organized about this and consider some options, I have something to throw out there. Turbolapp mentioned human trafficking, and that is a major problem I have been bothered by for a long time. What can we do about it? In particular, sex trafficking is huge and regardless of the macho interwebs b style joking, snatching up a little girl and forcing her into the sex slave via drugs and other abuse is disgusting. I'm sure we can all agree. And prostitution is largely online now - craigslist might have gotten rid of their sex ads but other websites took their place. I know there are legit escort sites, etc., out their but there are also some sites that make a lot of money facilitating prostitution and rape through social networking type sites where basically "the pimp went from the street to the web." Whether it is an informational campaign or pushing leads to the FBI or police, with an organized effort we could have an impact here.
I am obviously down to help out with SEO and anything else I can do, count me in. I think the first step is to get everyone who wants to be involved organized in some fashion - at least a wickedfire group, better yet an e-mail list or newsgroup for updates and organizing. Maybe a Google group?
tldr: Great ideas but I think we need planning and organization before we jump in. You wouldn't dive into a niche without doing some research and we need to know wtf we're getting into before we end up balls deep in a shit fest.
