Phil Dourado asked a really good question the other day. I wish I had some kind of answer.
So, if 19 million people were moved by a piece of viral communication to talk like a pirate yesterday (see post below), how come only 150,000 people a day regularly click on www.thehungersite.com ?Actually, perhaps this is a case where there I don't really want to answer the question, but just to go click the button at thehungersite.com. Maybe you would like to do the same?I remember when the hunger site started up in the heady dotcom days and some naive optimists (yep, that was me) saw an inkling of a possibility of this one initiative making a real difference to world hunger. My God, we thought, look what the internet might achieve in channeling goodwill and, more importantly, food, to hungry people while delivering millions of eyeballs to advertisers for a few seconds at a time to pay for it?
After all, who wouldn't want to spend five seconds a day clicking on a button to give a cup of free food to people who have none? And at no cost to themselves?
Technorati tags: hunger, phil+dourado, pirates, poverty, thehungersite

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Comments (2)
There is a new magazine that recently launched in the US called "Good". It's vaguely lefty magazine, with an emphasis on direct citizen action, and articles about things like gerrymandering.
They have a subscription offer wherein 100% of the $20 subscription price goes to one of a variety of charities that they support -- everything from Creative Commons to UNICEF.
They describe their rationale on the web on this page:
http://www.goodmagazine.com/subscribe/why/
Oddly, I was turned off subscribing by this pitch: it simply seemed "too good to be true" and more like spam than good business.
I'm wondering if something of the same dynamic might be at work with The Hunger Site?
October 15, 2006 16:07 Permalink for comment
Peter: I think you may be right.
October 15, 2006 16:14 Permalink for comment