The holiday season is in full swing, and that means it’s time to share some of the comfort we enjoy year round with those who are a little less fortunate — and just to be nicer to people in general. This year, Yahoo is kicking off a drive called You In?, where it invites users worldwide to share their “purple acts of kindness” (purple has long been Yahoo’s official color).
Here’s how Yahoo describes the campaign:
“Help us create a ripple of good around the world with purple acts of kindness. Update your status to share what you’re doing to spread holiday joy, then inspire others to join you by asking, “You in?”
Yahoo! will also be doing our own purple acts of kindness inspired by your updates. So whether you pay for someone’s groceries or drop off a coat for the homeless, you’ll be encouraging people around the world to join in acts of kindness.”
The site revolves around briefly describing your good deed in a Yahoo status message, which is then plotted on a global map. Right now messages include things like “Connie is buying coffee for everyone at work today. You in?” and “Dropped off supplies to the local Humane Society and to the local women’s shelter”. And then there are gems like this one: “I just returned a case of wine that was mistakenly delivered to our house. Husband had to be dragged along w/this decision.”
The site also has a pool of Flickr images that people are using to share their acts of kindness.
It looks like we’ve caught the campaign pretty early on: the site only has 161 updates at this point, and the pool of Flickr images only has a few submissions. It’s hard to knock a do-good campaign like this one, but Yahoo might want to consider integrating Facebook and other social networks so that users can share their updates from other platforms.
Aside from ‘You In?’, Yahoo also runs regular monthly campaigns though its Yahoo For Good program.
Via Khris Loux’s Twitter stream.
