Indulge Yourself in Good Deeds
I know that I have done some bad things in the past. But it’s OK. I’m making a difference!
If you see this clever little icon next to someone’s name in MSN Messenger, that person is a good person too! And you can join in the altruism-fest! Simply browse to this site, choose from one of 9 different causes, and make your vote within MSN Messenger. Now, a portion of all ad revenues that Microsoft makes will go directly to the organization you selected.
There is one big problem though. You don’t have much control over who your friends vote for. For example, you might not like that fact that your buddy is funneling Microsoft ad dollars to some group like 9 million instead of Sierra Club. You can check this — just hover over their name in Messenger, and look for a code in to tooltip (something like *9mill). Now you know who your buddy is voting for. When you find out, you have some choices:
- Message him and explain why he is selecting the wrong cause
- If he persists, remove him from your buddy list, to stifle the amount of conversation (and thus revenue) he can generate over the period of the promotion. Use ICQ if you must talk to him
- Tell all your friends to vote for YOUR cause, to get relatively more revenue for yourself
- Blog about it
That way, you will multiply the impact of your good-deed doing.
The list of organizations is not too bad, though. The only two that I would add are “The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation” and “The Foundation for Transparency in Foundations”.