Anyone making bank with swine flu hysteria?

[Brad Gosse]

Come on. Someone here must be cashing in on this thing. Everyone is freaking out.

You could sell masks, antibacterials, immune boosters, health ebooks and more. Anyone?

[Allen Lewis]

Are you kidding me? This is a tragedy and people are DYING and you're trying to make money off it?

<<sarcasm>>

[mprey]

I actually got this idea lying bed last night but it made me feel a little...bad.

Moral concerns notwithstanding, this would probably be a rather temporary opportunity...or not.

[Allen Lewis]

Originally Posted by mprey

I actually got this idea lying bed last night but it made me feel a little...bad.

Moral concerns notwithstanding, this would probably be a rather temporary opportunity...or not.

The reason why you feel bad is because of all the negative media reporting.

More people die from the regular flu every year than the swine flu will ever kill. Does anyone sit down and feel bad about that?

As long as you provide solutions that genuinely HELP people, I don't see any problem with it.

Allen

[juzanobo]

Taking advantage to a situation like this is just ain't right. Basically, the sole intention is TO MAKE MONEY out of it.

[Brad Gosse]

Originally Posted by juzanobo

Taking advantage to a situation like this is just ain't right. Basically, the sole intention is TO MAKE MONEY out of it.

The media is making money on this. Why not me?

[Neil Morgan]

This one's not for me but many businesses exist to help when the lives of others are falling apart.

It's been happening since the start of time and it's all relative.

Cheers,

Neil

[Neil Morgan]

The media is making money on this.

Exactly what I was thinking too - the bigger the disaster, the more they make.

[Mar]

Well, I guess there are loads of people "out there" making some money from this; from the drug companies and medical supplies companies to affiliates.

Apart from people getting sick and dying, the group of people who are likely to be most adversely affected by a "pandemic" are the operators of tourism-related businesses, (including affiliates.) Testing times all round.

Mar

[Dan C. Rinnert]

I suppose medical professionals should go through eight or more years of expensive college and internships and such, and then spend the rest of their lives working for nothing. After all, lives are at stake and how dare these people try to make money off of that? After they finish a 36-hour shift, they can head over to the local box store to work part-time to earn an honest living. Profiting from suffering, the nerve of those people!

You know, storms can destroy property as can fires and floods. How dare people capitalize on other people's fears in order to sell them stuff like emergency preparedness kits or insurance!?

</sarcasm>

Trying to sell fake cures and stuff is certainly wrong. But, I don't have a problem with anyone selling legitimate solutions.

It's also important to keep in mind that some people don't prepare for anything. On the one hand, I think the media (and marketers who use the same techniques) are partially to blame for that. Everything is a potential crisis and, if it doesn't become a major situation, people stop listening to warnings and such. The media becomes like the boy who cried wolf. When the real wolf comes, people no longer believe him. On the other hand, situations like this also help to make some people aware of the need to be prepared for emergencies, whether it's a virus or a storm or anything else.

[Queen of Suburbia]

I actually registered the domain pandemicselling.com i figured that a new word has entered the popular lexicon so i might be able to leverage that rather than take advantage of ill people per se.

No idea what i'm going to do with it yet? I'm thinking it calls for an ebook on creating word of mouth....

[Queen of Suburbia]

Word of Mouth - Not to be confused with "Foot and Mouth" obviously!

[NoBoss]

I spend valuable time researching and daily updating on
Swine Flu for world-wide audience and some here suggest
I should feel guilty collecting a few Adsense dollars ??

...Doug

[Dan C. Rinnert]

Originally Posted by NoBoss

I spend valuable time researching and daily updating on
Swine Flu for world-wide audience and some here suggest
I should feel guilty collecting a few Adsense pennies ??

If you're getting pennies, you're doing something wrong.

[TelegramSam]

If people are helped I don't see anything wrong with it.

I notice all major domain name with the words swin flu in them have been taken. Most of the sites are adwords based.

Here's another swine flu site I saw registered in the last few days:

http://www.AvoidingSwineFlu.com

It isn't even finished yet by the looks of it but I guess they are working on it.

It seems to me that the biggest money makers will be the drug companies, not to mention governments who will be raising taxes to pay for it all.

I just wished people wouldn't panic so much and make matters worse. Most of the poor souls who catch the damn thing seem to survive and recover.

Hopefully it will pass quickly.

Sam

[petevamp]

Here is a way you could reap in profits on it and not feel bad about it. I have several adsense sites. All of which are free informative articles about certain things. If you set up an informative site about this out break of the swine flu. As well as things to prevent it not selling them a single thing other then the adsense ads showing on your site. This would be the only way I will be building off of this to add to my adsense sites. Since I do not get paid for the site other then through the links they click. The silent behind the scenes money maker.

Peter

[JayXtreme]

Some of the major pharmacy peeps have had BIG orders for flu vaccines and related stuff..

The shares in one company rose like CRAZY yesterday as this swept the UK market...

There's definitely a gap in the market, and a niche in the gap

I've not ventured, but I did have a quick look at a few things:

TradeKey have an affiliate program here:

TradeKey Membership Overview

^ Different grades of "dust masks", similar to the ones being worn at airports right now

Just Sayin'

Peace

Jay

[GoGreenGo]

Hey whatever works, people gotta fight this crap economy some how. Oh by the way I have the cure for the swine flu, top secret government doesn't want you to know about it. I will sell you the secret for just $49.95, now tell me, isn't your family's safety worth it?

[viktor]

This swine flu not going to last long, just like bird flu.

However, my source in the security agencies says next year a "raccoon flu" is going to suddenly, accidentally and unexpectedly appear, so be prepared.

[markymark1085]

There's no way to get articles etc indexed fast enough is there? Doesn't stuff like that take months? Unless you do some kind of article marketing I supposed...but reg SEO it'll be over before you rank!

[trishworks4u]

so i should go buy raccoonflu.com? kidding...don't want to part with my $10 right now.

I do know that the folks in my main business (biohazard) are scrambling to throw things up on their websites and make something of the 'swine flu'. I'd rather just leave mine as it is and make it sweeping and general. If it's gross and/or dangerous, I'll take care of it for you. :+)

[AmyKay]

It will blow over. As mentioned, more people die from the regular flu each year. This is a big deal, of course, but the media is making it to be so much more. What else is going on in the news right now? Nothing!

Don't sell a useless, scammy product, and there's nothing wrong with making money with this new niche.

[TerryTelford]

Hi Brad

I think Debra summed it up perfectly in her post

Why All the Swine Flu Drama?

Enjoy your day!
Terry

[Steven Wagenheim]

Dan, you're becoming one of my favorite people here. Great post.

What is it with all these moralists?

Do you have any idea how many industries in this world make a profit off of
people's pain and suffering?

Please don't make me go down the list because we'll be here all day.

I am dead set against selling snake oil and will never do it, but if I have a
legitimate product, whether it be a mask or supplement to help people's
immune systems or whatever, I'm going to sell it. There is absolutely
nothing wrong with it.

Now, having said that, I don't usually jump on the health fads because
there is too much competition too quickly, even for something like swine
flu, which is relatively new. Go to Google and type on swine flu. You
already have 154 million sites. With only 3,600 monthly searches, that's a
KEI of 0.84. No thank you but there are easier ways to make a living online.

Sure, you could write articles, submit to EZA, get about 20 to 30 reads
per article, and drive about 5 people from each article to your blog and
hope you get some Adsense out of it, but it's just too competitive to
turn it into a viable long term niche. And as trends go, it's too competitive
for that too.

Like I said, there are easier ways to make a buck.

[Rita012]

I had posted on my blog that our school district called all families listing the precautions they are taking. My blog got a ton of traffic from that little entry.

[trishworks4u]

...well said

[BlackWaterBlog]

Originally Posted by Brad Gosse

The media is making money on this. Why not me?

The media are all a bunch of ignorant pieces of crap.

[TelegramSam]

I'm tired of all the bad news, so on a lighter note...

I heard termiteflu and horseflu as well as cat, dog, cow, badger and fox flu was coming next year.

Thankfully you can only catch fishflu if a fish sneezes on you under water...

[Brad Gosse]

Originally Posted by TelegramSam

I'm tired of all the bad news, so on a lighter note...

I heard termiteflu and horseflu as well as cat, dog, cow, badger and fox flu was coming next year.

Thankfully you can only catch fishflu if a fish sneezes on you under water...

Actually the correct terms would be bovine flu, canine flu, feline flu and equine flu.

[Magic Johnson]

Just jump from train to train.


This isnt the "new big thing". Get Serious friends, start to build real businesses and stick to a plan ala marketing and business planning, I know its hard from experience but it pay back times 10x instead of the jumping from R to X to XY.

Just my 2cents of value. Of course you could argue about this but think about it all. Trends don't last forever, real business with an worthy solution are priceless.

The thing is that Swineflu are not more dangerous than the flu thats very common in human beings.

It's just a media spin, at least for now- there's thousands dieing every year of the common none Swiney flus.

So dont panic..