charity

Slate's Paul Collins on Friday took Amazon.com to task for not being more generous in its charitable giving. "While Amazon.com is famously cheap in its prices, it's also become infamously cheap to the community it lives in," writes Collins. The criticism,while clever, misses the mark, much as deprecations of corporations for not contributing more open-source code largely miss the mark.

Why? Because a company should not be measured by its charity, but rather by how well it delivers returns to shareholders. A company is set up to generate profits, not alms.

This distinction … Read more

Trendwatching gets it right (again): "Giving is the new taking, and sharing is the new giving." That's the key assertion in this month's trend briefing, which describes the characteristics of Generation G (for generosity) and offers eight ways for brands to join: from Tryvertising to Brand Butlers to Random Acts of Kindness (RAK).… Read more

Good: You're in an up-and-coming band. Bad: Hurricane Katrina comes along and destroys all your gear. Good: A charity, Music Rising, is set up to try to raise money. They're doing this by auctioning off iPods that music celebs like Gwen Stefani, Faith Hill, and The Britney have loaded with their favorite playlists. Sounds like a win for everyone involved, but it might be too good to be true.

Don't get me wrong, as a former musician and survivor of my own environmental catastrophes (no, not my messy bachelor pad), I understand the need for relief. I … Read more

We debate the proper pronunciation of WebOS from Palm. Does it rhyme with Huevos? In any case, Palm has killed the old Palm OS, so may it rest in peace. We also analyze the state of the TV industry. LCD shipments are down, so everybody's getting out of the plasma business? I guess that's why I'm not CEO of an electronics company.

Buzz Out Loud chat auction to benefit Kiva http://www.humanety.com/

MS to offer free Windows 7 upgrade to Vista users http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/02/11/238222 … Read more

If you're looking for something "good" to do Thursday night, you're in luck. Volunteer-organized Twestivals are planned in more than 200 cities around the world.

The Twestivals are a loose coalition of fundraisers that aim to use the social-media tool du jour--Twitter--to raise money for Charity Water, a nonprofit devoted to bringing clean drinking water to developing countries.

It's not officially organized by Twitter, but enthusiasts are hoping that the series of Twestivals can be an example for future fundraisers and how the likes of Twitter can fuel volunteer and donor efforts. Word has spread … Read more

Charitable causes are getting hit hard these days, but the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, formed by the eponymous Microsoft founder and his wife, announced Thursday the donation of nearly $14 million. About half, or $6.9 million, is going to two U.S. organizations promoting broadband connectivity, and another $7 million has been awarded to fight a parasitic illness that threatens millions of people in developing countries.

The $6.9 million for broadband has been donated to advocacy group Connected Nation and to the American Library Association's Office for Information Technology Policy -- the bulk of it to … Read more

NEW YORK--I hereby insist that we all stop using the "Recession? What recession?" line, which seems to be used every time any company has thrown any moderately lavish party in the last two months. Not only is it overused, but I think folks have caught onto the fact that things have legitimately changed.

Here in New York, the last blowout launch party in the city was for T-Mobile's Android phone in October. Company holiday parties have been scaled back like mad, leaving fewer opportunities for that great New York sport known as party-crashing. But socialization hasn't … Read more

Metasearch engine Dogpile announced Tuesday that it has raised $100,000 toward its goal of raising $1 million to help pets in need.

Dogpile donations are being funded through its Search and Rescue program, a service that's designed to help pets by donating a portion of the search engine's revenue to animal-related charities. Each time a visitor uses Dogpile's search or its Search and Rescue Facebook application, the company delivers some of the revenue generated from that query to the ASPCA.

"Whether people are using Dogpile.com for their online holiday shopping or just for general … Read more

Sometimes the line between virtual world and real world is blurry. It's been known that Chinese gold farmers make a real living out of the WoW gold. On Friday, Sanrio Digital, maker of the Hello Kitty Online game, for the first time turned the in-game food to real money for a good cause.

The company announced the conclusion of the first Hello Kitty Online charity event called "Food for Friends." The event was held in the final week of the Hello Kitty Online closed beta.

Players created and submitted 344,965 in-game food items. Based on the … Read more