MainStreet.com: Worst Idea Ever?

Did I fall asleep last night and wake up on April 1st? That's the only explanation I can think of for MainStreet.com, a new venture that I feel confident describing as the most unintentionally hilarious personal-finance website of all time.

A spin-off of TheStreet.com (TSCM), MainStreet promises "personal finance with a celebrity twist." If that sounds like an implausible formula, it's probably because you can't imagine someone would actually try to use, say, crack-smoking singer Amy Winehouse's Grammy wins as the peg for a story about addiction and health insurance. Well, imagine it.

And if that sounds like a questionable editorial decision, just check out the segue in this story about the memorial service for Heath Ledger: "An unexpected tragedy is difficult to recover from emotionally, but some advance planning can make it easier to pay for financially.... One of the best ways to financially prepare for your funeral is to start a fund for a pre-arranged funeral."

People, grown-ups are not toddlers who need to be fooled into eating some mashed avocado in their pudding. Nobody wants little gristly bits of investment advice in their celebrity fluff or vice versa.

On the other hand, if it really is a premature April Fools Day prank, all I can say is: Bravo. Well played.

Comments

[Bleumangue:]

Please help. I'm trying to find links to the Kobe Bryant marital advice section as well as diet and exercise tips from the Olsens. It never ceases to amaze me that someone somewhere was clever enough to parlay this tripe into a (hopefully short) paying job. I saw the emergence of this type of presentation with "commercials-we made-that-were-hilario... With credit to Lewis Black for the concept - The same people that will take advantage Mainstreet dot com are the same ones who think that the Flintstones were a documentary.

2008 Feb 12 03:33 PM

[Josh Martin:]

I agree with you! That really is rather pathetic/hilarious. There's one more site to avoid!

2008 Feb 12 04:23 PM

[Long-Short Guy:]

I remember that TradingMarkets had a series of stock picks from Playboy Playmates. The main attraction was the photos (say no more). The justification for the stock picks was hilarious.

But the irony was that some of them did better than the indexes.

2008 Feb 12 05:23 PM

[Tom B:]

Come on-- can't be worse than Fox News, or, more correctly "Faux News".

2008 Feb 12 10:17 PM

[Geoff Consi...:]

I LOVE this article. If you think about it, this is just a logical extension of Mr. Cramer himself. He has proven that you can generate a lot of media traffic by yelling and being theatrical while dispensing dodgy advice. So, why not use the antics of Britney or Amy Winehouse...? This is the natural progression of the Cramer business model. Anyone remember the film Network?

2008 Feb 12 11:20 PM