AutismTown - Building a Community of Advertisers?

When I first read the press release for the creation of AutismTown, I was thrilled. While there have been some niche community sites created, none of them have been very high profile, nor have they been created by the organizations already providing support to those niche communities.

AutismTown is a joint creation of Autism Speaks, Cure Autism Now, and TalkAutism. Autism Speaks and Cure Autism Now have just announced a merger, and the combined organization provides grants for autism research and promotes awareness of the autism epidemic. TalkAutismprovides web-based support for parents and caregivers of individuals with autism, including message boards, services directory, and an online learning library.

The idea that these organizations would unite to provide a Web 2.0 community site for families dealing with autism was a promising one, and the timing of the launch and press release to be just before the beginning of April, which is Autism Awareness Month, seemed to be perfect timing. Until you delve into the "community" site, that is.

AutismTown is using a Web 2.0 buzzword to lure people into what is essentially a fundraising site. Under the guise of its tagline, which says "AutismTown - Where Help, Hope and Understanding are 'right next door,'" the site is really a reworking of the Million Dollar Homepage idea, with "pixel plots" being sold on the AutismTown homepage. However, where the Million Dollar Homepage sold individual pixels for $2.00 each, AutismTown is limiting purchases on their page to plots of 100 pixels at $1.00 USD each, making the minimum "donation" for a plot $100.00.

AutismTown claims that the site is "populated by hundreds of points of individual and group expressions of dedication, the mosaic of our autism community will reflect our vision of bringing Hope, Help and Understanding to our neighbors and, especially, our children." In reality, it's populated by a whole bunch of companies advertising services. One large plot actually does link to a story of a family dealing with autism, but it links to a woman who has a new release of a book talking about that story. So essentially, the one "family" story is really an advertisement for a book.

Families who deal with autism are very often strapped for cash, paying for many therapies and equipment for home use out of pocket. Requiring a minimum donation of $100.00 to join this "community" in order to raise funds for the two organization seems counterproductive. It would be one thing to sell plots to advertisers to fund a community site, but to claim that buying a plot is creating a community is a misnomer at best, and I'm disappointed to see these organizations going this route to raise funds.