Until recently, the only people who looked at divorce as a potential meal ticket were most likely attorneys, counselors or furniture movers. There were the scattered academics that authored studies and the occasional pop writer who would pen a self help book. But, for the most part, not too many people were looking to divorcing Americans as consumers-- that is, until the dynamic growth of the Internet.
“It’s a free market society, so naturally, I would expect new technologies and tools to take advantage of that, for better or worse,” says Dr. John Grohol, the publisher of the Web-site
www.psychcentral.com, which has been turning a profit by providing mental health information and networking online for more than a decade.
“Instead of just being limited to the two lawyers in a small rural town who handled these matters, now people have access to dozens or hundreds of services that can help them with the legal, financial and emotional burdens of divorce. I only see the upside in having more choices available, as I suspect most Americans do.”
It’s hard to pinpoint how much revenue is generated each year from Web-sites providing services or information related to divorce. But with the number of new divorces in the U.S. each year currently holding at about 1 million, it’s not hard to see that there’s a need.
Consider these numbers.
1. The word “divorce” appears in more than 30,000 registered domain names with the suffixes .com, .net, .org, .info, .us and .biz
2. Google.com has cataloged more than 88 million web pages – 10.8 million this year alone – that include the word “divorce.”
3. There are more than 12,000 blogs in the English-speaking world with the word “divorce” in the title.
4. There are more than 6,000 books with the word “divorce” in the title currently listed on Amazon.com.
5. There are more than 200 trademarks that include the word “divorce” registered with the U.S. Patent office.
But anyone seeking divorce information should consider whether the information is accurate and helpful, says Vic, a Virginia woman who began blogging about her experience with divorce when her marriage ended suddenly a few years ago. “…I as a consumer have to question whether you are representing someone or whether the product you are selling is pushing a point of view,” she says.
Her advice: the best information about divorce is provided as a resource – and it’s free.
