Donate2Play: Charity 2.0
Out of Victoria, British Columbia, Canada comes Donate2Play, a very social way for charities to generate funds and raise awareness.
As the story goes, three entrepreneurial friends from Vancouver Island, Tomas Ernst, Kelly Pereira, and Adrian Pereira, got together last year and decided they wanted to revolutionize fundraising.
The premise is straightforward: Donate2Play creates games for charitable organizations. Those who play the games are asked to donate. You can find examples here.
The overwhelming majority of the money donated goes to the charity, the rest towards developing the game.
Charities such as Hope for the Nations and the Ancient Forest Alliance are already on board.
Nice Work If You Can Get It: Developing Websites in Slovakia
At first glance, the homepage of the Slovak National Gallery in Bratislava would appear to be the gateway to your average, run-of-the-mill website.
Yet appearances can be deceiving. For this website — for which the kid who mows your lawn on Saturdays or your nephew in Wichita might charge a hundred bucks or so – came with a price tag of over 25,000 euros (or $33,000), according to a report by Slovak daily SME.
The director of the gallery told SME that it was money well spent for the minimally designed site, though many a comment under the article disagreed with that assessment.
Of course, the Slovaks who are footing the bill for the site should be delighted that they got such a bargain. A couple of years ago, their neighbors to the south, Hungary, paid exponentially more for a presence on the worldwide web.
North Pole Entertainment Mogul Snow E. Mann Has Viewed Your LinkedIn Profile
LinkedIn has added a distinctly Web 2.0 twist to holiday well-wishing.. Anyone who has checked the "Who's Viewed Your Profile" section on the right-hand side of the business networking side will have noticed that Snow E Mann, an independent snow management consultant, has perused their information.
Chelsea Clinton Ushers In a Great Week for Nepotism
I am hereby changing my name from Sancho Glickman. My new name is Sancho Bush Qualye Sarkozy Soros. Yes, I am the son of not one but four famous men, and because of that fact itself the job offers in media will do nothing other than start rolling in from now on.
There is no reason not to like Chelsea Clinton, and indeed every reason to like her. She is bright and articulate. But so are thousands of other folks trying to break into the media business through crummy entry level jobs. Yet, because their father wasn’t a president and mom a secretary of state, many are unlikely to advance as far as the former First Daughter and get a call for an opening at NBC.
Not to pick on the young lady. She is not alone. It is highly improbable that James and Lachlan Murdoch would sit in cushy boardroom chairs had not their father Rupert owned the portion of the broadcasting business that NBC does not.
And the familial favoritism this week does not stop in journalism. Despite Howard Buffett’s credentials as a modern-day Renaissance man – philanthropist, businessman, author, photographer, conservationist – could anyone possibly imagine his being chosen as the next non-executive chairman of Berkshire Hathaway were his dad not Warren?
‘What’s Happened to Adsense?’ Goes the Silent, Unheralded Cry of Impoverished Web Publishers Everywhere
In a quainter, more peaceful age, when neighbors greeted each other, men wore top hats, and fruit grew on trees, a select group of web publishers eked out a living, or at least found a noticeable, if not hefty chunk of change in their pockets, thanks in no small part to Google Adsense.
But then came the Wall Street Wreck of September 2008, and since that time earnings from Adsense seem to have fallen faster than Bill Clinton’s pants upon the introduction of a new staff intern. Revenues in the Chortler Media Empire have declined substantially, to the stage where we ask ourselves: “What is the point of Adsense?” Is it is merely a slightly better alternative to affiliate marketing programs, or is there still something to it? In other words, is Adsense the Barack Obama of the online advertising world, ie, disappointing and lackluster but better than the alternatives?
Apparently, we are not the only ones feeling a Google-ly pinch. In fact, a quick search of the famed search engine shows that a myriad of publishers are seeing their earnings trickle down drop by meager drop.
Message boards for online publishers these days are afire with irate and frustrated webmasters lamenting the ever-diminishing size of their monthly check from Mountain View.
Here’s hoping better days are ahead for those who bring us the World Wide Web.
