Do A Good Deed Chatting Today

A lot of us use Windows Live Messenger on a daily basis (locally known as MSN and used as a verb), and since we Malaysians absolutely hate to donate to anything other than one's own bowl of kolo mee love to throw ourselves into philantrophic causes this should make all of us sit up and take notice.

Microsoft is being a nice big brother and is implementing something called the I'm initiative, which is a campaign to direct a percentage of their Windows Live Messenger advertising earnings to select causes. And not just any causes - a whole range of organizations are in the program, ranging from the National Aids Fund to UNICEF. Guess who gets to choose which programs receive the dough?

That's right: you.

You and half a million users worldwide. Users in MSN now have a secret emo (the i'm emoticon ) that you display in your username, your PMs, and even your messages with friends. Microsoft tracks them and at the end of the day sees which emoticon (denoting which organization) their money goes to. To display one of these emoticons all you've gotta do is to type a simple code, all starting with '*'. Here they are:

The i'm emoticon codes and causes ...

• American Red Cross -- ready to help, code = *red+u
• Boys & Girls Clubs of America -- providing a positive place for kids, code = *bgca
• National AIDS Fund -- fighting AIDS, code = *naf
• National MS Society -- joining the MS movement, code = *mssoc
• ninemillion.org -- helping 9 million refugee kids, code = *9mil
• Sierra Club -- exploring and protecting the planet, code = *sierra
• StopGlobalWarming.org -- stopping global warming, code = *help
• Susan G. Komen for the Cure -- finding the cure, code = *komen
• UNICEF -- helping kids survive, code = *unicef

Okay, so maybe just Windows Live Messenger users in the USA. For now. This doesn't stop me from putting up my own badge of honour in my username, to tell Microsoft we Malaysians are capable of doing more than breaking, trashing, reproducing and then enjoying countless copies of your software. (Tze Lun, that was a dig for you calling me The Boss. Grr.)

That's right. We're also extremely capable of directing your funds to causes we choose. Or at least we can pretend to choose.

They want our buddy lists to look like this:


So do i. What are you waiting for?

changing the world. Are you?