Social Media,Big Brother, Rewards & Profit

[REIMktg]

I have not been around WF much lately so this may have already been discussed. I also rarely think of anything that I feel can add to the community, but this morning I read this:

The Associated Press: 'America's Most Wanted' still going strong

and then I read this off Drudge:

State Dept. competition expands horizons of social networking - FederalNewsRadio.com

And thought what a great opportunity, if it has not already been done, for one or a team of the brilliant minds here to make an extra few million. Yes, million, as it could grow very large if handled properly.

Create a site that leverages the networking of the America's Most Wanted types with the incentive to participate being a share of the reward. Obviously fully integrated with Social Media - hell you'll probably get free Facebook ads.

There are countless, ok maybe not countless, rewards available for individual criminals (think local, state, federal, international, private recovery). If this worked, there would be many more rewards offerred and given, no doubt. But the money from Ads alone could be tremendous.

It could even be expanded into full dramatizations with a YouTube partnership for greater exposure, or keep the videos to your site, which is best I am not qualified to say. Even news programs may pick up the segment, nothing better than crime drama to boost ratings.

Just a thought - this could also be used for the find missing children program someone discussed a long time ago that never got off the ground, though I am certain the participants would want to monetize that too - no shame in that. Make money and do a good deed - nothing better than that.

Well hopefully someone finds this concept worthy.

 

[Fastb]

I saw this done a few years ago by a company in Houston that had an emphasis on people that where wanted for non-payment of child support. I did their web work.

They had a lot of interest initially and they got a lot of publicity.

After a few months they where hit by several states demanding that they cease operations or advertising in their state because: if they where "tracking down" wanted people in their state they needed to get a private investigators license and would need to conform to their state laws, even if all research and tracking was being done via the internet. Problem is, when you place an ad on the internet it is not viable (or at least was not at that time) to block ads being displayed on a state by state basis.

Then the lawyers got involved over liability and insurance issues. If some idiot decides he is the new Dog bounty hunter and shoots someone or "arrests" the wrong person (which is kidnapping) there is contingent liability and you can be wiped out financially in a flash.

Then you have the issue of your own database integrity, if you post incorrect information there is no limit to your liability.

It sounds like a good idea for the right person and maybe the time is right now, for me it's "been there - done that" and I don't want to be in any business that has the potential to piss-off big brother.

 

[REIMktg]

So many issues in this day and age. I wonder then how America's Most Wanted escaped litigation/liability - or did they, would have to do a lexis/nexis search on that.

Thanks for your input. There certainly are multiple factors to consider with the largest being the liability, lawsuits or whatever that AMR did to insulate themselves.

I think the idea would not be as much as an investigation as an informative situation that reaps a reward. The FBI etc offers these all of the time - even private organizations offer these up.

It would certainly have to be something that is jointly worked, the leads that is, with law enforcement.

 

[Fastb]

I'm sure it helps quite a bit to have a celebrity spokesman and a large, well funded media company behind you.

I see some merit in this though, perhaps a memberships site with a forum where people interested in these type of rewards could congregate. That way you would get a set monthly service fee instead of a percentage.