Ways you can help Wrong Planet without spending a dime!

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Hey all. You may notice the donation request at the top of the page, but there are other things you can do without spending any money at all.

If WrongPlanet.net is an important part of your life as an aspie, write letters to the editors of newspapers telling them how meaningful WP is to you. If a newspaper decides to do a story about us, it will bring even more awareness to the site. Most newspapers have an email to which you can send letters to the editors (for instance, the NY times is [email protected] ).

Let them know they can direct any questions to [email protected] , the developer of WrongPlanet.net.

Also, if you have a blog, put a link to WP on it.

We need to show people there's a better alternative to Autism Speaks which is spending millions on TV ads and PR blitzes! I don't have that kind of money but we can make a dent by taking advantage of our large number of dedicated members who want a different side of Autism in the media!

We have more than 15,000 members and we deserve to have our voices in the media! Look out world, Wrong Planet is here to challenge the perception of Autism!

I agree 100% with you Alex!...especially about how lousy the organization Autism Speaks is! I don't know if you read here (somewhere; I forgot where though) on WrongPlanet.net that someone said television networks will not permit people on the air who they sense is not against all forms of Autism?

I listened to a Christian radio station for decades up until this past Thanksgiving. I was stunned to hear them promoting Autism Speaks! I quit tuning in because it makes me to sick to my stomach. I've been trying to reach the person responsible to ask him or her why have they started this. I'm still waiting for a return phone call. They also aired time to promote The American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA). That too is bad. ASHA is out to destroy the deaf culture. Deaf people hate ASHA.

If I get in contact with the person at that radio station I'm talking about, I'm going to ask him or her to give air time to WrongPlanet.net. If they will not do it, I will tell them I will take that money I used to donate to them and use it for promoting WrongPlanet.net!

I saw the flag - I was meaning to ask, where are you advertising? I've been assuming the ads pay for the site (but little more), how is the financial situation? The constant crashes of a few weeks ago seem to have stopped, were you able to get another server?

(I'll probably chip in a little, but I can't afford to 'til after Christmas, unfortunately - it's an expensive time of year.)

mmaestro, advertising on google adwords program (google search results, for example). I did some major database optimization and coding a couple weeks ago which has reduced the server load to 1/3 and that isn't an issue and won't be for at least a while

The financial situation is not too good in terms of what I expected it to be. Traditionally the advertising revenue has paid for all the costs minus my time working on the site (i've never made enough to get an hourly wage for hours spent working on the site). Thisi month, Advertising revenue is down and expenses are up.

Lately I've been hiring people to write articles for the front page. For instance, I'm in the midst of arranging a deal w/ Tony Attwood to get some of his content as articles on the site. This is important for my goals of what WrongPlanet needs to become.

While I wish I did, I don't have 12,000 dollars a week(or even a month) to spend on a publicist to get WrongPlanet mentioned on Good Morning America or the Today Show or to get a writeup in the New York Times.

I can't afford ads in newspapers or magazines and especially not TV. The current advertising campaign is coming out of my pocket and it's being spent on Google Adwords, the only type of advertising within my financial means. And I think right now it's incredibly important to get our message and to get WrongPlanet mainstream national / international publicity when Asperger's is starting to get the attention it deserves....

If I didn't care about advertising, publicity, or development of new features, WrongPlanet at least would be able to pay for it's bandwidth and server costs, but WrongPlanet has the opportunity of changing the world's perception of Asperger's and becoming THE place for people with Asperger's to go. There's more of us than people realize and I think that's only starting to become apparent.

Autism Speaks is a commercial effort. And it's like the old "silent majority," they were neither. WP is not a commercial effort. Alex puts in a whole bunch of his time and energy, the ad revs (as far as I know) support the sight capacity, which probably ain't cheap, and believe it or not, WP has a lot more credibility, even without huge infussions of cash than Autism Speaks. Personally, I think Autism Speaks, or any group that claims to speak for any other group of people is highly suspect.

It's something like "Cure Autism Now." Cure what? I've been AS all my life. I don't think it's something you can cure. I mean, I also get headaches (nothing to do with AS). I can cure those. But AS? gimmie a break. This site does a whole hell of a lot more than all the sites put together. And it's not the site. It's Alex!

Any site that grows from 2000 (when I joined a year and a half ago) to 15000 plus, which is what we are today, is doing something right. So it's not funded by a big network or corporation. This is the internet. Who wants that kind of funding anyway? Then they start to tell you what to do. "Hey, wouldn't it be neat if we could cure Autism....what could we do....uh, well, there's a lot of money in prefrontal lobotomies." "Does that cure Autism?" "Well, no, but it makes people vegetables, and that takes care of the problem." Yeah, right!

So if there's anyone out ther who was thinking about helping someone, just remember where you are right now. And that it's still free to its users. And remember that the guy who makes it possible is this thin blond kid (sorry alex, but I'm A LOT older than you) who breakes his butt to get keep this thing ongoing, and keep it "free." That is, between school and his life.

Think about it.

Beentheredonethat

I posted one in my local paper's letter to the editor link, and will keep after them.
What if we all followed the NY Times link, posted there, and tried to get them to write up WP that way?
Also, Good Morning America and the Today Show have Contact Us links. One or two of us contacting them won't do much, but what might happen if a lot of us flooded them with "do a story on wrongplanet.net" emails...?? And kept at it...??? Until they caved and did it...??????

someone already sent a letter to the nytimes. I suggest we wait to see what happens with that. sending too many to the nytimes may do the opposite of what we want. although maybe i'm wrong

probably not wrong. I was concerned that if it's just an isolated letter or two, it may be ignored. A flood, however, may indeed get the opposite of the intended reaction. Maybe a trickle?

Where else can we send a letter to? I would love to help out wp!

today show: [email protected]

CNN: http://www.cnn.com/feedback/cnntv/

http://abcnews.go.com/Site/page?id=3271 ... %20America
http://www.cbs.com/info/user_services/i ... _us.shtml#

Washington Post: [email protected]

I think probably one of the most effective things you can do is look for articles on autism and asperger's in your local papers. Letters that are tied to an article previously published are more likely to make the cut, and you can use those as an opportunity to mention WP as an alternative to the overly vocal Autism Speaks crowd (remember: they have the advantage, they have a former head of NBC, he knows the right people to get publicity).

..

Last edited by CF on 04 Dec 2007, 8:41 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Does anyone have any contacts in the media that could be utilised?

I know a lot of people within the media in NZ and in the UK (I'm a journalist), but none in the US unfortunately and I think that's where this should focus for now... A lot of the media etc is based completely on who you know, so if someone knows someone who knows someone who could get a plug in there you'd be sorted!

I'll help out with cash after Christmas.

I will also work with Sleepy Dragon on our media in Australia. I'm certain Sleepy Dragon will get involved although she doesn't know what I'm up tp yet

I'll do the same.

Last edited by Mw99 on 04 Dec 2007, 10:54 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I emailed CNN.