The Red Cross has raised $5 million dollars through $10 dollar donation via text messages for the Haitian earthquake victims. Google has made a $1 million dollar donation.
The blog Mashable has put together a list of companies and sites donating and/or creating services to donate money:

Zynga: The social gaming company has added virtual goods to its games — including Farmville — that go toward Haiti relief. So far, the effort has raised $1.2 million according to Social Times.

Skype: The VoIP service has sent $2 vouchers to all of its customers in Haiti, allowing them to make up to one hour’s worth of calls to U.S.

Salesforce: The CRM software provider has set up a donation matching program: i.e. for every $1 you donate to Red Cross or World Vision, Salesforce will also give $1, up to $200,000 total.

T-Mobile: According to CNET, the carrier has dropped all charges for calls and texts to Haiti through the end of the month. Other carriers are waving charges for the donation text message that has been so successful for the Red Cross.

MyYearbook: The social network is allowing members to donate their virtual currency to the Haiti Relief Fund. So far, members have pledged $3.5 billion in “LunchMoney.” We’ve followed up with the company to see how much real world money that equals.

GoDaddy: The domain registrar has donated $500,000 to relief efforts.

Facebook: The company is leveraging its “Disaster Relief on Facebook” Page to spotlight ways that members can get involved. Facebook’s Randi Zuckerberg blogged about the effort earlier today.

Sometimes, the web can come in handy.
/ylva.

Twingly Live is a new application making it possible to sponsor real time services for media web sites. The first business case is a special version for the Climate Conference in Gothenburg, sponsored by Vattenfall. In this case, the application is fully integrated in one of the largest Swedish news sites, dn.se and, off course, it’s real time. The Cop15 Twingly Live is showing news articles that tweets with the hashtag #cop15 are linking to.

This is how it works:

This is a good way for companies to get real time feedback and input on a specific subject. As the corporate world becomes more and more transparent thanks to social media, it’s important that companies start living their brand, otherwise, it might seem they’re high jacking a topic rather than contributing to and supplying a good overview of the real time conversation taking place on the Internet regarding a specific topic.
Vattenfall has been questioned in different social channels. Twingly Live is a good way for them to follow the discussion and also giving them an opportunity to act and communicate with their critics.

What would you like to have a live stream about? Amarone wines? Middle aged women snowboarding? Rare orchids? The possibilities are endless!
/ylva.

Last summer, I got HelloTxt; a tool that allows me to update my statuses  in different social channels on the same time via MSN. Cool, I thought, and added Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook. Then I changed my mind. I only wanted to use LinkedIn and Twitter for business purposes, via HelloTxt, and Facebook for private stuff. It’s embarrassing, but I have to admit it, I didn’t succeed in removing Facebook from HelloTxt, so all my business status posts were shown in all 3 channels. However, I made a very valuable discovery. People were more active and responsive to my status updates, even business related ones, on Facebook then on Twitter and LinkedIn.

With over 350 million active users and growing, especially in the age group 35-65, as well as 3.5 million people becoming fans of a Facebook page every day (the business equivalent to a profile), Facebook is a marketing force to reckon with. And not only for B2C products targeting young people.

Possibilities for your company to ba active on Facebook:
- Start a page; connect with your customers, start discussions, keep up the dialogue
- Use event postings to promote off-line activities
- Use discussions as on-line customer service or recruitment
- Get photos and films from fans, and keep their interest by letting tag themselves in the photos.
- Entertain with apps, especially sticky ones that make your customers want to come back.
- Advertise – Facebook gives you a unique possibility to be very narrow and specific in communicating with your target group.
- Use social ads, they are very powerful (X is now a fan of Cordovan. Would you like to become a fan to?)
- Create a marketplace and sell your products
- Be mobile

Here are 3 great blog post from Social Media Examiner with different aspects on corporate presence on Facebook:
- Five Facebook-Only Strategies For Business Success
- Facebook marketing: everything you need to know
- 5 ways to promote your Facebook fan page

Sometimes,not succeeding in doing something (like removing Facebook from HelloTxt) can be a very valuable lesson.

/ylva.

Related post: What are you doing right now?

Now that the cold holds the whole of Sweden in a tight grip, the use of touch screen mobile phones becomes almost impossible – at least outside. Luckily enough, for all of us who can’t wait until we’re home or at work to call, sms or twitter on our phones, Dots Gloves have developed special gloves, tailor made for iPhone (hope they work on other touch screen phones too).

I’ve e-mailed them to ask if their gloves work on other touch screen phones (I have a SonyEricsson Xperia myself) and I’ll let you know as soon as they get back to me, ‘cause man, do I need a pair. In the mean time, you can join them on Facebook.

Take it easy out there in the ice and snow. And remember;  watch out where the huskies go and don’t you eat that yellow snow!
/ylva.