Thursday 9 December 2010

It took six days for twitter followers of celebrities like Justin Timberlake & Lady Gaga to raise $1m for Africa

Tweet on 1st December:




Tweet on 6th December:


Full information:

Update - The gossip site Popbitch has a different take on the story:
"Neatly proving just how ineffective social media actually is, 18 celebrities (and Jay Sean) sacrificed their "digital lives" for charity last week, vowing to stop updating their Twitter and Facebook feeds. Social network silence from Lady Gaga, Alicia Keys, Justin Timberlake and others until their fans donated a million dollars to the Keep A Child Alive campaign to help fight AIDS.
With six days gone, donations were still under $300k. The celebs got restive - Usher just plain gave up and started tweeting - so a billionaire patsy, and longtime AIDS funder Stewart Bahr, was drafted in to pay it off.
It would have cost the celebs' 35 million combined followers less than 3 cents each to buy back their lives and get them tweeting again, so it appears their fans are staunchly pro-AIDS, or no-one really cared very much about what they had to say in the first place.
FYI Serena Williams inadvertently summed up the campaign's biggest problem in her last tweet and testament: "[It means] no more news about me winning more Grand Slams, selling books, winning gold medals, owning AMAZING football teams or pioneering fashion until we raise some serious cash". Is it any wonder people wanted her silenced? http://bit.ly/huo25w  "
Source:  Popbitch newsletter, Issue 526, 9th December 2010

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