Cornering the market
September 16th, 2007A rather ghoulish insight into the burgeoning tragedy industry in today’s Herald, from Calum MacRae, the webmaster in charge of the “Find Madeleine McCann” website, which as it turns out is being run from a lock-up garage in Ullapool:
Calum is already working on new ventures after spotting a market in missing-person websites. Last week he contacted the family of missing schoolgirl Rosemary Edwards, from Hampshire, after her father made an emotional TV appeal. He said: “I don’t think we should be making money out of it, but I would love to do more stuff like this. We phoned up to see if they wanted a website for that missing girl, but they haven’t called back.”
How rude of them.
September 16th, 2007 at 16:33:00
Raising the rather creepy prospect that all future missing kid websites will have the same out-of-the-box design, with the particular details slotted into the same template. Like all the football clubs whose sites are made by premiumtv.co.uk, or Newsquest’s This Is [Location] local newspaper websites.
I’m now pondering the design of a WordPress theme called “Tragic”, specifically created for such situations. Just add in a photo of the kid into the space provided, fill in your PayPal details, and you’re good to go.
September 18th, 2007 at 15:18:43
Now we know she did it, is Calum looking a bit nervous, do you think?
September 18th, 2007 at 16:02:44
Ermm….. *checks Portuguese contempt of court laws* …lemme get back to you on that one…