Save Karyn
When I first heard about this site a few years back I was disgusted (okay, I still am). The short story is Karyn finds herself $20,000 in credit card debt and suddenly without a job. Most people toil away and slowly pay off the credit card debt; Karyn starts a website and asks people to donate to the cause. Brilliant - and somehow revolting. Karyn came early to the game and got a ridiculous amount of press, spawning the concept of cyberbegging. Thanks, Karyn, people gave you $20,000 and you gave us web panhandling.
The Million Dollar Homepage
Prepare to be devastated when you click on this link. Going to this website will make you sick to your stomach - but in a "I could have made a million dollars..." (as if you had been kicking this idea around and just never executed it). The premise is to sell a homepage of 1 million pixels to advertisers for $1 each. The site promises to stay up for at least 5 years and with the novelty of the idea, people will go visit it. Anyone who thinks this is less than absolute genius is an idiot.
Wants for Sale
This money-making scheme is quite clever: two artists have wants, they paint the wants on canvas and you pay the amount of the want for said picture. You get original art and they get what they want. The art below, titled "Drinks on us" cost the art collector $500 and the Wants for Sale artists had a night on the town or a round at the bar. The artwork on the website ranges from free to $1,000,000.
one red paperclip
The short version: "My name is Kyle MacDonald and I traded one red paperclip for a house. I started with one red paperclip on July 12 2005 and 14 trades later, on July 12, 2006 I
traded with the Town of Kipling Saskatchewan for a house ..."
Apparently this guy is either ridiculously lucky or a world-class trader. Either way he has traded his story for a book deal and now a career. That little red paperclip is a little piece of metal that just keeps on giving.
The list goes on and on...but the concepts aren't as novel. Cyberbegging websites have popped up encouraging people to beg for their schooling, breast implants, debt relief, etc. One thing I find interesting is real-life begging relies heavily on the in-person contact. You can't just walk up to a person asking for money, find out their life story and then opt whether or not to give without guilt like you can on a website - so the question is what drives people to give online?
Posts
I think the big difference betwen these "cyber begging" people and your run-of-the-mill panhandlers is that their approach is a lot more creative. I guess a lot of people out there have nothing better to do with their money than to reward this creativity?
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