Wellness 360 Acknowledges “Difficult Times”

In an almost desperate-sounding message today from Wellness360 (aka Aperture Health) Chairman Thomas Banks (via Cindy Wells), the company acknowledges the impact of “difficult times” and makes a plea for members’ “assistance” if they want to “enjoy economic rewards” via their site: visit at least 10 pages on the site every day. If at least 25% of the site’s 67,000 active members do so, says Banks, the website will hit the 5 million+ page views per month minimum that he says paying advertisers require to invest their advertising dollars on Wellness 360.
According to Banks, Wellness360 is receiving between 1.5 and 3 million page views per month, which would put it at a third to a half of what they need to attract advertisers.
IMO, the email comes off as bribing members with the promise of economic rewards for artificially inflating page views to entice advertiser revenue. “The success of wellness360 rests in all our hands…for together we can become a force that advertisers cannot ignore.” Wait, is the purpose of the site to educate and motivate members toward a healthy lifestyle, or to manipulate page views to fleece advertisers?
Just FYI: According to Aperture/Wellness 360′s company’s profile on Yahoo Finance, Mr. Banks pulled down a salary of $182,000 last year and exercised an additional $247,000 in options…despite the fact that the company had a net loss for the year of $657,000.
So let’s be real, folks: this company isn’t a non-profit, and its sole purpose isn’t to help members earn money — their 10 employees want to keep their jobs. Appealing to their members’ desire to get paid for all of the points they’ve been accumulating for the past year is just a means to that end.
I pointed out in March that Wellness 360 was having serious problems and that its quarterly financial report released in February showed that the company had “no revenue” and only $5,329 in cash as of December 31st. What I didn’t note at the time is that within a week of that report’s release TWO of the company’s directors stepped down (see here and here).
The company issued a press release in January to announce it had enrolled 400,000 members. Now they’re saying that only 67,000 are active on the website?
Something’s fishy in Denmark, folks. My recommendation in March was to avoid Wellness360 except for casual use; don’t expect to get paid for your activity there. Today’s email has done nothing to justify a change in my position.
Hit Continue Reading to see the full text of today’s email from Aperture Health/Wellness360.

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Dear wellness360 Members,
I know I echo your sentiments in acknowledging that “These are very difficult times for us all.” Even the world of Internet, health and wellness services have not gone unscathed.
My purpose in writing today is to enlist your assistance as our partner. Regardless of its purpose, no Internet venue can succeed unless its members actively participate. At wellness360 we exist only at the pleasure of our membership. More importantly, to become a successful website that meets your desire to enjoy economic rewards, it is critical that we attract “Paying Advertisers.” To achieve this objective we need your assistance.
The bottom line is simple; advertisers only support websites that have substantial page views. So, together we succeed or fail based on our memberships’ activity and your use of wellness360. Advertisers are “only” interested in having their messages reach both a substantial and uniquely-targeted audience, such as people who…
· Exercise regularly
· Suffer from a disease (such as Diabetes)
· Follow specific diets
· Take specific medications,
· And much, much more
The good news is we have advertisers willing and ready to invest their “advertising” dollars in wellness360. However, they want more than just a targeted audience; they demand a large number of page views (or hits) to justify their investment in wellness360 as an advertising channel.
Yes, every month we enjoy substantial page views – ranging from 1.5 to 3 million monthly. Unfortunately, the key number for advertisers in today’s climate is 5+ million page views month after month. Fortunately, this level of page views is easily achievable if we work together. “How” you ask? The answer is very simple:
If each of our 67,000+ active members visited wellness360 every day and only viewed “10” pages, we would have more than 20 Million page views per month. So, if only 25% of our membership visits daily and views ten pages, we easily achieve the five million page view threshold. In doing so, together we can force our advertisers to commit their marketing dollars to wellness360 sooner than later.
Today I ask each of you to join me in making wellness360 the advertiser’s choice for health, wellness and lifestyle advertising. That’s right! The success of wellness360 rests in all our hands…for together we can become a force that advertisers cannot ignore.
Thank you for your time, support and understanding. All of us at wellness360 are committed to our members, for without you, we have no purpose.
Be well,
Aperture Health, Inc. / wellness360
Thomas Banks, Chairman

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