I've been mulling over Kenneson's recent thread: Unofffical Jehovah's Witness Website Censured . Might this just be the biggest 'own goal' the WT has ever made? And I'm wondering if this might not be a very lucrative (financially and information-wise) opportunity for someone here...
Let's face it, we're all lazy--ok, maybe too big a generalisation: I'm lazy!--and a web site that makes my life easier is an essential visit.
We all know the extreme load that WT places on JWs' backs by insisting on hours of Bible reading, personal study and meeting preparation every single week. It's unrelenting. Any web site that makes their lives easier cannot fail to be extremely frequently visited. (The popularity of Bob Desinger's and David Silver's web sites proves there is a huge 'market' for such services.) Human nature being what it is, they will disobey WT's increasingly paranoid diktats to avoid non-official JW web sites, if they find one that provides non-threatening, time-saving, useful information for them.
Additionally, the weekly nature of the JW schedule means that this huge market would not be 'one hit wonders' but would come back, week after week, for the latest scripture listings and study materials.
Of course, users would require to register to use the site, giving the site owner a valuable list of 'active' JW email addresses. The service could perhaps be free at first, but after a suitable momentum had been established, might introduce a 'paid for' service.
And a site with a sufficiently large regular audience might even pull in some advertising revenue.
It would also be an interesting exercise to be able, when appropriate, to occasionally insert additional relevant information to JWs, e.g. from older publications, that might cause them to start their own questioning process...
Of course, the site would have to be informative to JWs while remaining 'apostate-neutral,' not being overtly anti-JW, otherwise that would deter too many from returning.
The only problem with posting this publicly is that it is warning the WT of what may be happening. Apart from feeding their paranoia over the Internet, their only alternative is to unofficially 'authorise' such a site themselves, something their paranoia would never countenance!
Any thoughts? Or is someone already doing it?