http://www.medjugorje.com/?gclid=CPClgdW2gKECFSMslAod6zTesw The above website is currently running a campaign to get folks to donate 200,000 for the 'upkeep of the site'. I cannot understand this. I noticed this website before,constantly asking for money. Websites are very,very cheap to rum. This site, for instance, costs me nothing at all. I only pay about a two dollars a month for keeping the advertisements off, there is really no expenses at all. I cannot see how anyone needs 200,000 dollars,a very great deal of money indeed. In general I would be very,very sceptical of folks looking for money on any site connected with visions. Also and this troubles me a lot, they are using Our Lady's words as though Our Lady was asking for the dough. This in my opinion is in very, very bad taste, as you will see below: Also there is a threat, if you don't hand over the dough they're going to close the thing down, 'We also will not continue if we do not raise the funds necessary to operate Medjugorje.com.' Again bad taste. http://www.medjugorje.com/medjugorje-today/current-information/826-future-co
Well, they have certainly built a substantial web site with all the bells and whistles but I'm not sure that is really necessary to accomplish their ultimate goal of spreading the word about Medjugorje and the apparitions. I will say, however, that building and maintaining a web site of their size and scope costs a lot of money. Aside from having the hire people to manage and maintain it, they have to pay the bandwidth costs to their hosting company. Also, I'm sure they have had to buy some servers to place in the hosting company's data center to serve up the web site because of the online traffic the web site receives. This also costs money to purchase and maintain. So, there are some substantial differences between running their web site and a simple forum like this one, so let's be sure we are comparing apples to apples. The problem, I believe, is that the foundation running the web site is trying to do everything "top notch" and to make their digital properties (as well as physical properties) state of the art. Not only is this expensive, but I wonder if it is necessary? Having a slick operation that produces highly polished digital material is necessary for some businesses, but is it really needed here? I took a look at their post justifying the cost of the web site and saw the studio they built for broadcasting and I think the money could have been better spent helping people get to Medjugorje if they have limited funds (or something charitable). Additionally, they are not communicating very well why they need so much money to operate the web site. In a sense, I got the impression they "doth protest too much" which leads me to be skeptical and reluctant to donate money to their cause. But, this is all coming from a recovering public relations professional who is now in social media marketing. I therefore have my own biases! Tom
Unfortunately, the media (including the internet) is dominated by people who have either very little or nothing at all to do with what it's about, in this case Medjugorje. I would agree that one needs to be very careful here; there are, after all, many other websites that are just as good, if not better. The official one is http://www.medjugorje.hr and you'll notice that no such fund is requested there.
Most of the material on their website is free!! I have downloaded audios to my MP3 player and free books to my computer from Medjugorje.com. I have a soft-spot for a friend of Medjugorje & think he has his finger on the pulse of Medjugorje and I have learnt a lot from him. The money he is asking for is not only for the maintenance of the website but also to print free books about Medjugorje [at least 20 books]. They are also gearing up for the release of the secrets and will be able to distribute millions of books for free. They also have a radio station to run and that cant be cheap. Padraig, - you always have your fingure on the pulse of what is happening & are right to question what is going on with regard to Medjugorje.com.
