This game will help end world hunger. Literally.

November 21, 2007 at 12:23 pm · Filed under On the Web, Advertising

Keeping it simple can make a difference, and Poverty.com’s sister site FreeRice is a perfect example. FreeRice has two goals:

1. Provide English vocabulary to everyone for free.
2. Help end world hunger by providing rice to hungry people for free.

Execution against these goals resulted in a very casual online word game which, for each correctly answered multiple-choice question, contributes 10 grains of rice to end world hunger.

In a quick session (that actually became somewhat of a contest with my wife) we contributed several hundred grains. It doesn’t sound like much, but it all adds up—between October 7th (when the program launched) and yesterday (November 20th) over 3 billion world-hunger-ending grains of rice have been racked up. Yesterday alone FreeRice donated over 218 million grains.

Wondering who is paying for all this? There are small advertisements placed on the FreeRice site. The money generated by the advertisements buys the rice. Thankfully the ads are placed on the site in a restrained manner. A ClickZ blog posting notes that Apple, American Express, Toshiba and Macy’s are among the participating advertisers.

The game itself (while incredibly simple) is fun, has an addictive quality, and provides an assessment of your progress by way of 50 game ‘levels.’ The game was designed with everyone in mind:

FreeRice automatically adjusts to your level of vocabulary. It starts by giving you words at different levels of difficulty and then, based on how you do, assigns you an approximate starting level. You then determine a more exact level for yourself as you play. When you get a word wrong, you go to an easier level. When you get three words in a row right, you go to a harder level. This one-to-three ratio is best for keeping you at the “outer fringe” of your vocabulary, where learning can take place.

There are 50 levels in all, but it is rare for people to get above level 48.

Ready to test your vocabulary? Go help end world hunger! Report back with what level you made it to!

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Instant messaging for a cause

March 3, 2007 at 3:40 pm · Filed under Applications

If you use Microsoft’s Instant Messenger (and if you don’t this might make you consider using it) you can have Microsoft share a portion of their advertising revenue to an organization of your choice. From the Microsoft site:

i’m is a new initiative from Windows Live™ Messenger. Every time you start a conversation using i’m, Microsoft shares a portion of the program’s advertising revenue with some of the world’s most effective organizations dedicated to social causes. We’ve set no cap on the amount we’ll donate to each organization. The sky’s the limit.

So any time you have an i’m™ conversation using Windows Live Messenger, you help address the issues you feel most passionate about, including poverty, child protection, disease, and environmental degradation. It’s simple. All you have to do is join and start an instant messaging conversation. We’ll handle the donation.

It doesn’t appear that the OS X Messaging client can participate yet-hopefully it will be able to in its next release.

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