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Social networking sites as forum for political and social issues

Ranging from small campus issues such as rumors of the discontinued late van service to larger political and social issues such as Darfur and Breast Cancer Awareness month, many social networking sites seem to be the focal point of raising awareness on a wide variety of social, political, and economic issues. It does not come to surprise me. Popular social networking websites such as MySpace and Facebook get millions of page views every day. Social networking sites are rising to be a marketing dream as more people spend a majority of their time online rather than watching TV.

Here are some notable issues that have used Facebook as an engine to raise awareness and donations for good causes.

"Join to Support Breast Cancer Awareness Month"

This group was started last month. At the end of October, there were more than 800,000 members which raised about $114,000 in pledges. Even Google partnered up with this site to create the "lookpink" search engine devoted to breast cancer awareness month and 50% of search ad revenue goes to funding breast cancer resesarch.

"For Every 1,000 that joins this group I will donate $1 to Darfur"

Started by Marek Grodzicki from NYU, he has pledged $1 of his own money for every 1000 people who join this group. By January 1, 2007, he will tally the number of members in this group to come up with the final count. So far, there are more than 450,000 members in this group. He is currently taking matching requests from other facebook members and looking for corporate sponsors as well.

posted by Koh @ 6:57 PM