Tuesday was World AIDS Day, and everyone was celebrating. Sites were turned red, people added ribbons to their avatars, sales proceeds were going to AIDS research, deviantART started art contests, and people were donating to (RED), a campaign to fight AIDS in Africa. I wanted to do my part and donate, but I didn't know how much to donate.
I decided to let Twitter users decide the donation amount. I would post a "(RED)" tweet, and for every retweet it recieved within the next 2 hours, I would donate $0.25.
My good Twitter buddy @zachx agreed to match the entire donation!
Before the two hour period, I posted preliminary tweets about how it all worked. @drDanRyan replied and said that he wanted in on the matching!
After 2 hours, 204 people retweeted the tweet, bringing the donation total to $51, and with @zachx and @drDanRyan's matches, the total was $153.
It felt great to make that donation, but what's even more important is the 204 people who reposted it to their followers, reaching a potential tens of thousands of people to raise awareness about AIDS.
@zachx and his $51 check:
People were very supportive and reposted it promoted it:
We even got some people to participate who wouldn't normally:
You can donate to! join (RED) and learn how you can help to fight AIDS!
Follow us on Twitter: @danlev, @zachx, @drDanRyan
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11 CommentsUPDATE: (January 26, 2009) Fortunately, it turns out that BeatCancer was not a hoax, and the four cancer organizations earned over $70,000. Congratulations to those organizations! :)
"BeatCancer" is social media campaign by eBay/PayPal and MillerCoors donates 1 cent for every tweet, Facebook post, and blog post referencing the campaign.
After David H Lawrence noticed that there were no official press releases, I decided to investigate further.
Here's the reasons why it may fake:
- There are no official press releases by eBay, PayPal, or MillerCoors
- eBay, PayPal, and MillerCoors have not mentioned anything about it officially, besides PayPal tweeting "#BeatCancer"
- BeatCancerEverywhere.com is registered through GoDaddy and registration data is private.
- The old PayPal logo is used on the site - If it were real, PayPal MUST have reviewed it, and would not have let this pass.
- There is no copyright information, terms of service, etc. listed on the site.
Have you found any other clues? Have you found official sources? Please tweet to @danlev on Twitter!
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