Microsoft’s i’m Initiative, which launched in March 2007, has expanded to include Hotmail. The program donates a portion of the ad revenue generated through Hotmail and Messenger to any of ten worthwhile causes.
I like the basic premise behind the i’m initiative – it’s an opt-in and fairly unintrusive service that just puts an extra i’m-specific advertisement at the end of your emails, or an i’m icon next to your buddy list name. The more email and messages users send, the more money Microsoft donates to the charities of those users’ choices.
Microsoft so far attributes more than 20 million new downloads of Messenger to the campaign, in addition to increased usage of all Windows Live offerings such as Live Search and Hotmail. Since March 2007, the campaign has donated about $1.4 million to charity.
How do I include this on my hotmail messages?
It would really nice if they added a “Please dont print, think of the trees” line at the bottom by default.
Now THAT would change the world.
Sounds like a very smart, viral idea. Then again, Hotmail was known as the first viral marketing product on the Internet with the inclusion of their URL in every email sent, so being on the cutting edge is to be expected. Good stuff.
Enjoy,
Barbara
@1:
To contribute, go to “options”, in the top right corner below the sign out link.
Click “More options” from the drop-down
It’s under “Customize your mail” – “i’m making a difference”
Doesn’t work for me in Australia… the list of charities to choose from has only one option available: “No thanks”.
Nice idea though.
Oh dear … we are actually working on something like this and now that the big boyz are in town we’ll have to be more inovative.
“.. and we’ll plant a tree..” Go check latest Diggnation (live sf), where alex+kevin talk about trees getting planted when buying stuff online ie Itunes Store.. nice thought. Seems to me some M$ folks were there ;>
Is it US only ?
Looks like it is for US only.
US only right now.
Would like to see how big the ads are.