Comments on: Sullivan’s new Dish raises $333,000 from over 11K people in first 24 hours

By: AnAmerican

AnAmerican — Sat, 05 Jan 2013 17:59:38 +0000

Good for him, I like it and appreciate it. There are several groups whose good work I have followed for decades. This model by Sullivan may be of great help to them.
There are a few organizations in America who refuse to be a registered non-profit; a 501C3. They do not because they understand that it is really we the people, our tax dollars who end up really supporting them. The obvious “flip-side” is that donors are able to write their sum off of their taxes, again reducing the taxable income.
One of several, whose decades of hard work I have been thinking of since the horrible tragedy of Newtown, CT., is Focus Adolescent Services, http://www.Focusas.com / Their mission is to work with both parents and professionals dealing with “troubled” adolescents. I think that there is really no way of ever knowing how many lives they have saved with their massive and informative web site, their state by state directories of other helping organizations and especially their free national help line. They have always posted on their web site how they are able to maintain their quality counselors, paid their phone, light, and office bills, etc. It is done through discerning advertising and gifts from people like you and me. In this economy, like all others, they are seeing a great reduction, so I am told, in the modest revenue they need to keep working. Sullivan’s idea might be the answer. The downside is that it would exclude the many who can’t pay that initial fee..hum…However, if the millions who visit their web site gave just a dollar that is about the cost of a cup of coffee right? Look into this folks, their work is good work and obviously we need them and others too. We swore, as a nation, in 1999 following Columbine that it would never happen again………….tears for little innocent happy carefree children by the act of one evil animal. What do you all think?

By: Gerre Heron

Gerre Heron — Fri, 04 Jan 2013 17:01:08 +0000

I think Andrew Sullivan over estimates his audience. He may regret this move. I have followed Andrew since the 80s when I was so impressed with him that I cut out a photo of him and pasted it on my fridge. Then he was cute, skinny, young, smarter than most and was reasoned. Now I can’t get past his ridiculous, self indulgent, captain-of-the-titanic beard, his rages when anyone disagrees with him and he has less and less to say that I can agree with. He seems more consumed with being right than reasoned. Notice that he gets less and less guest invitations. Sorry, I think he is no longer relevant.

By: TJL

TJL — Fri, 04 Jan 2013 10:22:05 +0000

Caveat emptor. Sullivan started out with a similar model of asking for donations for premium content, but his Daily Dish newsletters were were few and far between. I paid him $25 by way of a donation to get ‘inside’ or premium content. they were neither. I could read everything he wrote for his premium group somewhere else for free. They eventually stopped altogether without notice or even an explanation that he was moving on. His political views have moved on. Let’s hope his business and customer service skills have as well.

By: Vinod Shintre

Vinod Shintre — Fri, 04 Jan 2013 02:51:05 +0000

excellent & great way to monetize content but of-course got to have that quality content.

By: Laura Hazard Owen

Laura Hazard Owen — Thu, 03 Jan 2013 21:24:47 +0000

Thanks for the comment — check out our piece from yesterday (also linked in the first line of this article) about how the actual meter works: http://paidcontent.org/2013/01/02/andrew-sullivan-breaks-from-the-daily-beast-new-dish-to-charge-20year/

By: Madlyb

Madlyb — Thu, 03 Jan 2013 20:57:11 +0000

You could have explained the meter model mentioned in the article.