So, maybe you heard about Microsoft’s newest promotion to get people to use one of its products. If you download Internet Explorer 8 through this site, Microsoft promises to donate 8 meals per download to a group called Feeding America, which wants to end hunger in this country. Sounds great, right? Read the fine print.
Only complete downloads of Windows® Internet Explorer® 8 through browserforthebetter.com from June 8, 2009 through August 8, 2009 qualify for the charitable donation to Feeding America®. Microsoft® is donating $1.15 per download to Feeding America® up to a maximum of $1,000,000. Meals are used for illustrative purposes only. Meal conversion is effective until June 30th, 2010.
In case you missed it, let me highlight the hilarious part: $1.15 per download. For 8 meals. Let’s do the math.
$1.15 divided by 8 equals just about $0.14 a meal. I don’t know where Microsoft is eating, but I have never heard of any place that you can get a meal for 14 cents. And this isn’t one of those “for just 10 cents a day…” commercials that promise to feed starving children in Africa, this is meant to feed people in the United States. Hell, a gum ball from one of those machines at a convenient store costs 25 cents. Some cost 50 cents. That’s almost 4 meals by Microsoft’s math.
We all know how this works. Microsoft was never actually giving anyone any meals (hence the, “Meals are used for illustrative purposes only.”), it was just pledging to throw money at what sounds like a worthy cause if it got something in return — users to download what many consider to be a sub-par web browser. But if you’re going to do that, don’t claim to be giving 8 meals away for every download, when you’re really only donating $1.15. That’s just misleading.
If you’re really interested in helping to fight hunger in America, go to the actual Feeding America site and donate. They don’t even force IE8 upon you. Of course, the minimum donation amount they recommend on the site is $25 — which is something like 180 Microsoft “meals.”
Update: Rather than respond to all of the comments saying the same thing, let me be clear: I understand how this works — as I said above, it’s all about Microsoft donating a dollar amount to a charity, and not really about the meals. That’s why it’s misleading to say in big bold letters that it’s donating 8 meals for every IE download. Microsoft is not actually donating any meals, it is donating a relatively small amount of money to a charity that provides meals.
How small is the amount from Microsoft? Well, it’s spending a reported $80 million to promote Bing, but is only giving $1 million to fight hunger. This despite the huge words talking about how awful it is that 1 in 8 Americans struggle to have enough to eat. One thing Americans aren’t struggling with is a lack of web search options, or a lack of advertising.
Of course, I’m being a bit facetious, hunger is a very real issue and Microsoft has a right to wrap its own agenda (getting people to download IE8) in a charitable cause. I just find it inappropriate to use the cause in a misleading way. If you’re donating about a dollar per download, say that. Don’t say how many meals you’re providing based on some numbers that, as commenter Josh Forman notes, don’t even add up. That was obviously just a tacky way for Microsoft to get a number “8″ that would match its own IE8, for branding and marketing purposes.
[thanks Andrew]
That’s just down-right dirty. Pretending to feed starving people is pretty low.
$1.15 = 70 Pakistani Rupees = 65 Indian Rupees. 5-8 rupees are enough to feed one meal there. So the goals are right. Microsoft should probably work with “Feeding the World” org
which part of india or pakistan are you living in that you can get a meal for 5-8 rupees? Just curious.
I am not talking about the urban part where you live. Think rural areas where the countries need support anyways. You still get 2 paranthas for 6 bucks and 4 idlis for 5 bucks there (unfortuantely these vendors dont have websites and dont print online menus which I could share with you)
2 paranthas or 4 idlis is not a meal. Even in jaila they give 2 rotis, rice and dal for a meal.
ya u r right
even 5 to 10 rs are hard to earn in some parts of india
and i think we are not talking about metros in india nor in any other country
we are not going for mecdi dude
ms helping people
How frickin low can these people stoop, relative to their treasury?
Just when I was beginning to throw out my conspiracy theories out of the window, bam! another slimy trick.
What makes anyone think that 65 Indian rupees are going to reach even one Indian villager?
Crores upon crores are gobbled up and moved to tax havens like Switzerland and Lichtenstein from the formal allotted budget.
And this IE8 money for Feeding _America_ is going to may its way to India?
Is it just me or does anyone else too see a complete diversion off-topic?
Forget rural areas – go to the New Delhi railway station. The guy selling food there on the platform will give you more than you can eat for less than Rs. 10 – And it tastes pretty good
Very true! 2 parathas or idlis is not a meal. It is a brunch item which you can take to sustain for 2-3 hours. Wonder how you can call it a meal. Even a coffee or chai in a roadside shop costs 5 rupees.
Feeding America’s website says “every $1 you donate, Feeding America helps provide 10 pounds of food and grocery products to men, women and children facing hunger in our country.” 10 pounds of food could easily equate to 8 meals… they aren’t pretending anything, they are writing a check for $1,000,000 million dollars… something they don’t have to do.
Thanks for the truth. You really made MG look like a bitter whiny little man though. I guess the truth really does hurt. Ouch!
I agree..This article makes me think Mr. Siegler is a big man who donates more than MSFT.
don’t belittle MSFT by your cheap articles just because you hate MSFT products.
Thanks for the clarity. Just goes to show how bad a journalist MG is. What ever happened to staying impartial.
Wow. I’ve learnt to not take Mostly Google’s posts seriously, but this one is his best by far.
Step 1: Pick an easy target. In other words, pick Microsoft.
Step 2: Choose to do selective research. In this case, choose to ignore what is explicitly mentioned on http://feedingamerica.org/our-network/how-we-work/how-we-work-graphic.aspx
Step 3: This is the fun step. Blow it as out of proportion as you can. Fill the article with your minimally coated hate-talk, citing the limited information that you chose to garner.
Step 4: Ignore the comments that point your errors and stick to your take of the whole thing (“It’s still misleading”). Nobody reads the comments anyways.
MG never fails to point to posts where he has criticized Google to show how he’s a fair reporter. The next time he does that, read those posts. And read the posts where he criticizes MS. See if they’re in the same neutral “journalistic” tone.
Yea, TwitterCrunch is good at steps 1-4
So in other words, his articles are like 90% of all articles printed every day from news sources?
i agree..
Exactly! Maybe MS should sue tech crunch for this article and bad publicity!
If I were Microsoft , I would do that for sure! Total jerks!
why I only read mike and as of recently sarah on tc and try to avoid other articles.
you idiots who criticize everything ms and kiss ass to google / apple. yes i have a macbook pro and yes google is my homepage but i appreciate ms because they provide competition (yes you would argue its not a competition but lets be honest).
I am excited to see what apple and google have to offer in the future not just because i think they present awesome products but because ms has in the past year started picking up the pace. bing for instance is really not bad (its actually in all likely hood better than google).
not an ms product but the pre is, in my opinion, in a straight hardware / software comparison better than the iphone (yes the sdk / app store isnt rolling out as fast as i hoped but it took 7 months and then a 2 month delay to get the iphone sdk out). competition to the great products of apple and google makes them that much better – learn to appreciate it.
all an ms fan needs to say to a mac fanboy is two words: market share.
no i dont like ms but give them an equal chance – you are a journalist for gods sake
Good Point
yeah very good point..
Market Share, really? THAT is your awesome response to ‘fanboys’?
Wow. So Microsoft have more PC based systems in teh World. What a staggering achievment THAT is considering how every Tom, Dick, Harriet and Bill can produce PC hardware and slap Windows on it.
Apple maintain control of their hardware & software. Just the one Company (yes, I’m aware they have contractors producing the hardware for them) and never intended to have total market saturation the way PC / Windows has.
Market share. Pfft. What a ridiculous argument. Of curse, I’m sure I’m just being a fanboy.
Apple maintains “control” of their hardware & software, really? THAT is your awesome response for blindly piling on Microsoft?
I used Macs and PCs both on a regular basis, and I can tell you from experience that while Apple usually has better software offerings than Microsoft, their much vaunted hardware quality control is about as insulting to consumers’ intelligence as the IE8 campaign.
In fifteen years of owning PCs, I’ve had exactly one hardware failure across several machines. In three years of owning a Mac, I’ve had four hardware failures in the same Mac. Apple hardware is overpriced garbage.
The clearest evidence of Apple’s hardware incompetence? How about Intel makes their processors now?
Don’t get me wrong: given a choice, I’ll probably take a Mac over a PC most of the time.
But market share does clearly prove that PCs did something right that Apple didn’t. And really, your assertion that Apple never intended to have total market saturation? Ummm, three words: iPod, iTunes, iPhone. If Apple could achieve that kind of dominance with it’s computer products, don’t you think they would have by now? Don’t you think market dominance is the goal of 99.999% of corporations?
Quality Control. Pfft. What a ridiculous argument. Of course, that’s about what I’d expect from a fanboy.
MG, you know you lost. Stop backpedaling to save face.
If you absolutely need to call someone a liar today, the only one you can call a liar is Feeding America, and that is only if you don’t trust their figures.
http://feedingamerica.org/faces-of-hunger/hunger-map.aspx
From their own math:
25$ donated = 175 meals = 7 meals per $1 donated
$1.15 donated = 8.05 meals
There is nothing you have that can disprove any of that. Everything else is your own opinion or conjecture, but there is absolutely no deception or false advertising.
It’s “articles” like this and writers like yourself that make TechCrunch more of a tabloid than an actual news source.
glad someone pointed that out. attempting to call someone out on their math when you haven’t done your own is just a way to make yourself look foolish and biased, which is exactly what has gone on here.
only in america is 10 lbs. of food for 8 people
What a stupid and dirty way Microsoft is having in their mind to promote Bing.
Instead of doing this they should donate to charity without any stupid conditions.
http://www.smartbloggerz.com
@ Typoon,
Microsoft does give to charity in a HUGE way, every year, Microsoft and its employees give billions to non-profits. They match 1:1 and have huge campaigns to support charitable giving each year. That doesn’t even include BillGs foundation which wouldn’t have been possible without the success of Microsoft.
From http://www.techflash.com/seattle/2009/06/Food_charity_disputes_criticism_of_Microsofts_IE8_meal_donations_48088037.html:
Looking for an answer, we called Feeding America, the national food-bank network that will receive the donation. In fact, Microsoft’s math is correct, and its promised donation of up to $1 million is a “godsend,” said Ross Fraser, a spokesman for the organization.
But Feeding America’s Fraser says it’s “upsetting when someone snipes about someone who is very generously trying to help us.”
Ouch, that doesn’t look good for Microsoft.
“users to download what many consider to be a sub-par web browser.”
many also feel that firefox is a sub-par web browser. but its ok, the use of “many people believe” is the way of going past the neutral point of view in journalism.
except IE8 actually got good reviews. firefox is the most vulnerable browser.
oh and
The Feeding America site does state “every $1 you donate, Feeding America helps provide 10 pounds of food and grocery products to men, women and children facing hunger in our country.”
http://feedingamerica.org
I actually am not a big fan of firefox either FWIW.
i find it odd that you would respond to the firefox part of the comment and ignore the rest which challenges the real substance of your article.
never had ramen noodles? they are .10-.15 a pack, and tap water is free.
exactly. Ramen is fit for kings and the homeless alike.
ugh, ramen. i only say this because i’ve been eating too much of it recently. i’ll lay off it for a month or so, then i’ll go right back to craving it!
Okay, I will agree with that. There should be an IE8 download for Ramen campaign.
I could hit the Powerball tomorrow and I’d still eat Ramen.
As for the ad campaign… It’s about as low as you can go for a company.
MG, with all due respect, this is not even funny. Microsoft is donating a certain amount for charity and the number (8 meals) have been corroborated by Feeding America Foundation http://feedingamerica.org/newsroom/press-release-archive/microsoft-ie-download.aspx
This is getting ridiculous and appears like a complete personal vendetta against MS. If you review their browser and call it Sub-Par that is fine but including that in this article, challenging the number (what difference does it make whether it is 8 7 or 5) and then questioning these policies makes me feel bad.
You might criticise their product as that is your job, but I guess on the Charity front what Microsoft has been doing and the organised way they are doing it is unprecedented. Did you ever get a chance to look at the work that the Gates’ foundation is doing in the developing countries ?
Finding faults in their product, technology is one thing but using your position and power to highlight these issues, unfortunately, doesn’t augur well. You are a phenomenal author, your words have the power to influence people’s decision. Please use this to make this world a better place and contribute positively. Also give a credit to companies like MS where its due.
I agree with everything you said except that he’s a phenomenal author. He’s the worst, most biased auther on the entire TC team. That’s actually quite an achievement.
Maybe MS is doing its traditional thing… More bugs than real stuff… Maybe its like $1.15 for food and the rest is for free bugs inside. (In korea they eat bugs…)
That’d certainly be a great campaign from CP&B… but if Feeding America wants to use the crappy $1M cash to move the other donated meals around the country, I guess we’ll have to either beat it or shut up.
I hate when we get shamed into submission.
MSFT Pig Fuckers!
Let’s go get you a Pre MG, you’ve earned it.
lol – That’s very funny.
Tap water isn’t actually free. Everyone I know pays water and sewage fees. And don’t forget taxes.
Ignoring the (admitting small) cost of tap water, what about the energy cost of heating that water to cook the ramen? And what about the cost of a stove and a pot to cook it with?
My point being; don’t make assumptions. Life costs money and being (truly) poor sucks.
It’s free if you don’t pay your taxes.
There are hardship programs available in just about every municipality that provide free or subsidized water and electricity.
Tap water isn’t free. Someone’s paying the bill.
Well, if clicking on that download link makes MS pay a dollar to FeedAmerica, then I’m all for it.
Microsoft is using Mosso for these IE 8 installers. That’s weird. I thought they had their own, you know, cloud offerings and what not.
Azure is only in the preview stages right now, and I’m willing to bet the overall cost per byte to move IE8 over Mosso’s CDN is cheaper than the alternatives ATM.
When we’re talking about feeding the hungry, a ‘meal’ doesn’t mean a combo at McDonald’s or a lunch at Il Fornello.
$1 million sounds like enough $$ to feed 110,000 people a meal comprised of rice/pasta/potato + soup + sausage or some other meat.
Sure, you’re not eating like a king – but you’re hungry, right?
This still ain’t making me enjoy using Internet Explorer, though. Unfortunately, I’m in Korea — an that means I MUST use IE if I want to buy something online, do internet banking, or process forms/applications with the local gov’t via the internet. If only I knew the purpose of just one out of the gazillion activex controls I install for the privilege of using that darn intarweb thing in Korea.
if you had any sense you would realise that a buck and change can provide 8 basic meals at the costs they have 2 prepare them for. And just because of this..your bashing them giving away up to a million dollars?. So damn what if it buys 4 meals instead? Jeeze ur a sickening cynic…. Do some research on what a basic meal of maybe rice or bread and a simple meat would cost. The starving aren’t that picky, they don’t need the $10 chic lunch your eating. ….ass
completely agreed, this guys a moron. Also calls IE8 a subpar browser (all sites gave it good reviews) and thought that bings video previews was new (live had it for the past year, and being a tech site, they dont care to even try it out because hes a google/firefox elitist tool)
You do your research. 14 cents can’t buy rice, or bread or even ramen to feed someone in the U.S.
The food in question is likely all donated, and the 14 cents possibly covers the cost of transportation or preparation, given the labor is also donated.
The author is right to ask Microsoft to tell it like it is, namely, that they will donate up to a maximum of $1 million to this organization. There is no need to make it sound like they are ending hunger in the U.S.
If feedingamerica.org states they can provide a meal for 14 cents I take that as a fact. If you don’t then go and discuss it with them instead of bashing Microsoft for it.
Schools in the uk do a lunch for something like 25-50p…
Food gets awfully cheap when your cooking bulk food, with 1 option on the menu.. stew..
Pierce
Wow Pete, it is amazing how constantly I am reminded about the incompetence of the American public. You’re a prime example. I was coming here to view intelligent articles and discussions and now I am regretting coming here in the first place.
14 cents is not enough for anything if you’re Giant Eagle or some grocery store, that’s because your paying RETAIL price. RETAIL PRICE! The cost of food is actually not that high if you’re a distributor or you have connections to distributors. Seriously, go do some research on this topic before posting.
And MG Siegler, just STFU. Please, do a favor for society and stop posting BS articles just because you don’t care about the poor. I’d like to see you give a million dollars to Feed America.
they should pay it in very healty Big Macs!
22″ or 24″ iMacs, Macbooks, or any Mac they want
oh boy, i just giggled a lot.
If you’ve got a substantive critique of the charity, have at it. But they say, right there on the site you link to, that $1.15 goes a long way in their network.
“Every dollar you donate to Feeding America helps provide 10 pounds of food and grocery products to men, women and children facing hunger in our country. “
Come on, any way you slice it, that’s misleading. If they said they’re donating $1 per download, that’s great. 10 pounds of bulk unprepared food per download? That’d be okay, I guess. But 8 meals per download? Please.
No, I think he’s made a good point. Its downright impressive how much these folks can do with a small donation. I think that should be highlighted in your article.
That’s not to say Microsoft isn’t being cheap. I’d venture a guess that they’ll spend more than $1 million advertising their (up to) $1 million “donation.”
Hmmm, 10lbs of bulk food, that seems like that would make a lot of meals. Especially if someone is volunteering to prepare it.
Speaking of donations and such, how much did you donate at the site?
So are you calling Feeding America the liar for using that statistic itself OR are you blaming Microsoft for not providing restaurant quality experiences when they say “meals”?
I’m still waiting for some sort of explanation of such shoddy journalism.
The charity provided Microsoft with that figure, and MS used it. Surely the charity knows what it’s capable of doing on a budget?
Let’s recap: the charity can admirably stretch their dollars, Microsoft is helping them and spreading the info the charity provided, and the article disparages those efforts?
At the very least, the headline is misleading – Feeding America, not Microsoft, has experience in getting superb value for money in helping needy Americans. That deserves more than ridicule and when you stop to think about it a little further, I think you will realise and should consider a retraction.
(Not American, don’t use IE, not starving.)
It’s time for TechCrunch (MG Siegler especially) to apologize to Microsoft and Feeding America for this shameful display.
The claim:
– $1.15 provides 8 meals.
The proof:
- “Every dollar you give helps provide 7 meals for families struggling with hunger.”
http://feedingamerica.org/faces-of-hunger/hunger-map.aspx
You could do a little (gasp) journalism and contact Feeding America to substantiate these claims.
Hey Kafka, did that check from Ballmer clear yet? It must have
.
At least Microsoft isn’t plotting the destruction of humanity….like Facebook.
Right Mike?
Try reading the charity’s site first before spouting typical cyber-cynicism, perhaps?
http://feedingamerica.org/our-network/how-we-work/how-we-work-graphic.aspx
From their site:
“For every $1 you donate, Feeding America helps provide 10 pounds of food and grocery products to men, women and children facing hunger in our country…”
If, according to their website, $1.00 = 10lbs, then $1.15 = 11.5 lbs. I don’t doubt that 10.15 lbs of food could create 8 meals. Obviously these are estimates, but considering they’re in the food bank business, they know what they’re talking about (at least more than anyone here…).
YOu actually believe that??? LMAO! Dude, go out to a supermarket and do some shopping! I bet that either your parents or girlfriend or wife is doing the shopping for you.
No person that’s connected with reality would believe that you could buy 10lbs of anything for a dollar.
Add yourself to the list of people disconnected from reality.
Feeding America is a food distribution network. They maintain relationships with all kinds of companies and people who donate money and food across the country, and coordinate the transport of this food to regional food banks, where they staff volunteers and others who help distribute the food to people in need.
Nobody once said anything about “buying” meals, they mentioned “providing” them.
You’ve never volunteered at a food bank then, I guess.
Here’s a hint: they don’t shop at the supermarket. Instead trucks drive up and deliver lots of food in bulk.
I agree with Andrew, if in substance, not in tone. I don’t know exactly how much meal you can buy for those prices, but IE 8 is much better than IE 7, the generosity (or scheming) of Microsoft pushed me over the edge.
I agree with that — IE8 is much better than IE7, but that isn’t saying much. Though that is saying more than it is better than IE6 which is the worst browser ever.
IE6 was an amazing browser for its time… it was just severely out of date by the time Microsoft felt the pressure to update their browser.
I’m glad you pointed this out. IE6 was bug-compatible with Netscape at the time of its release…in 2001.
Its incredibly frustrating that so many people still use IE6, but I don’t blame MS for that.
The Feeding America site does state “every $1 you donate, Feeding America helps provide 10 pounds of food and grocery products to men, women and children facing hunger in our country.”
http://feedingamerica.org/faces-of-hunger/hunger-101.aspx
And, that a $25 donation buys 175 meals, coming out to your 15cent number.
http://feedingamerica.org/faces-of-hunger/hunger-map.aspx
I think you are confusing over-priced “meals” at fast food joints or restaurants with food like rice and soup that can be purchased in bulk.
Thanks for the research Andy. I went ahead and downloaded IE8 because of this article.
Ha ha. Enjoy that.
MG, I think that your last comment 1) did not add anything meaningful to the conversation, 2) avoids the fact that Andy’s research points out that the premise of your article is incorrect and 3) shows that you are biased against Microsoft and IE8.
I’ll respond to #3. I am biased against IE8. I’ve used it — quite a bit. It sucks. Though it is infinity better than IE6.
Thanks MG. I was wondering who would replace Valleywag for my source of “news”.
Hah, you stupid jerks with your small print! Exposing you like this for the frauds that you are will teach you to donate to charity! F micro$$$oft!
For each one of you that stores a bag of my disposals at home, I will donate 2 dollars* to charity, which is like 14 meals*.
*The dollars and meals are used for illustrative purposes only.
I hate Microsoft.
Better than giving money to other countries like Bill Gates.
America made Microsoft rich, it’s only fitting that they should finance it’s poor. They should come down to LA with some actual food, and do something.
Simply because they can.
America wants to tout itself as being so much better than other nations yet we have tent cities here in LA where people are literally starving to death in aweful conditions. Right next to Beverly Hills.
So true.
Come on, did you expect them to be donating 8 rib eyes with a baked potato for each download? Just because you assume a meal has to be equivalent to what you eat doesn’t make this misleading, it just makes you ignorant.
Yes. With soup, salad, and desert. If you are going to give then 14 cents worth of noodles, then don’t call it a meal. Dogs and cats cost more than that to feed here in the U.S.
Yep.
do you know you are such a JERK..
The poor are just happy with whatever they eat and they thankful for just a meal for a day.
for a moment just try imagining, what if you were in their position.
I seriously think you should be Fired from TC
Feeding America’s audit shows ~$636MM in total expenses in FY2008.
Their annual report claims they distributed “enough to provide nearly 1.7 billion meals.”
That yields $.37 per “meal” by Feeding America’s own accounting. If you were to cut out the administrative cost and pretend the money were going directly to goods and services, it’d be $.33.
Microsoft is still off by a factor of two and a half given this method, but you make it sound way worse than that.
2008 FY audit
http://feedingamerica.org/about-us/~/media/Files/financial/990/2008/fa-2008-audit.ashx
2008 FY financial statement
http://feedingamerica.org/about-us/~/media/Files/financial/FA_08AR.ashx
Interesting stuff Josh, thanks. The whole thing is just misleading. What makes up an actual “meal,” anyway?
So simply because you can’t comprehend that 10+ pounds of food could easily provide 8 meals to someone in need you find it misleading? Funny, I don’t think the people at Feeding America are going to find the ability of delivering 10 million pounds of food to hungry people across the nation difficult.
This “article” seethes with Microsoft bashing in hopes of reaching the front page of Digg. TechCrunch just continues to show they are the scourge of the TechBlog world.
“What makes up an actual “meal,” anyway?”
You could probably call the charity tomorrow and find out.
Better yet, he could’ve called before he wrote the article – there’s a name for that kind of thing… meesearch? geesearch? keysearch? something like that, anyway.
Not misleading. All this because you hastily in bashing Microsoft. After reading people response I hope you have a courage to apology to Microsoft.
btw – I love your technical article, but not this.
mg…
nothing about this is/was misleading…
you decided to do your normal junk journalism… and you’ve been busted as once again.. you didn’t do any due diligence…
but this is TC isn’t it… where due diligence isn’t really required..
shoot from the hip and do that progressive journalism thing!!
jeez!!
I don’t know, what was your ‘meal’ last night? What was your ‘meal’ six months ago? I imagine meals are seasonal and dependent on what can be purchased for in bulk for the most efficient use funds.
Maybe Download IE 8 a thousand times over and over again, and let the poor get their 1000$s of food… after this Robin Hood Charity download, just delete the downloaded files… I use Linux, I am going to download IE8 tonight!
MG, this article is ridiculous. Makes me think on whether you wrote one because you were jobless
Nice one..
Josh: What is the marginal cost of providing one additonal meal? That is the important number in this situation.
I don’t know. The point of my post was to show that a simple calculation with readily available data shows that “meals” can, contrary to what the article suggests, be had very cheaply.
The goal of a charity like this is to keep people alive and relatively healthy as cheaply as possible, so I’m not surprised that a dollar goes a long way. Rice and beans might be boring, but they’ll keep you going for very cheap when bought in dry bulk.
Of course, my comment was used as evidence to support MG’s sensationalistic claim. Oh, the irony of railing against the NYT for their hit piece and then publishing crap like this.
MG Siegler do you have any idea how charities work? Countless charitable organizations know how to get the most bang for the buck. Giving a dollar to the Red Cross goes a lot farther than taking that same dollar to your corner store. Giant organizations have the ability to buy products in bulk, at huge discounts and tax free.
The Feeding America website says in plain text, “every $1 you donate, Feeding America helps provide 10 pounds of food and grocery products to men, women and children facing hunger in our country.” So, before you go chastising Microsoft for giving a million dollars to a great charity do some research and look in the mirror…
OP can pay a million bucks, and then bitch. In that order.
Well, its a noble cause, lets download it. There’s no harm in downloading it, who’s asking you to use it?
When I read it, I thought the big thing in the small print was that they’ll donate
“up to a maximum of $1,000,000.”
What’s $1M to MS? It kinda pales in comparison to their $300 million ad campaign.
Well, starving people ain’t got nothing on Bing, apparently.
“every $1 you donate, Feeding America helps provide 10 pounds of food and grocery products to men, women and children facing hunger in our country.”
It is still misleading. Let me explain…
$1 can help in buying 10 pounds of food => This may mean that if I chip in my $1 then they could buy 10 punds of food (here it is wrong to imply the cost of 10 pound of food is $1).
“help” is a vague word. So give me 100$ and I can HELP* you in buying your Lamborghini Diablo…
(I actually won’t pay the price for your Lamborghini Diablo)
Is this wrong, maybe my knowledge of english is not that good?
It’s good.
You are interpreting it as if they are literally buying food with the money. They said “providing.”
Feeding America is a food distribution network. They maintain relationships with all kinds of companies who donate money and food across the country, and coordinate the transport of this food to regional food banks, where they staff volunteers and others who help distribute the food to people in need.
To get the “$1 for 10 pounds” number, I’m assuming that they took a look at their yearly numbers, and divided their total distributed food weight by their costs, e.g. $500 million and 5 billion lbs of food distributed.
Correction: $80 million.
Clarification:
The Crispin Porter + Bogusky advertising and PR campaign was worth $300M.
Microsoft’s total ad spend for 2008 was $361 million.
The Bing campaign is $80-100M.
And the actual amount donated to charities by Microsoft in 2008 was $498 million…
http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/news/2008/12/microsofts-2008-donations-almost-500-million.ars
noted… which makes me wonder why they do this dinky little $1M drive that is just obvious fodder MS haters everywhere.
How much do you donate to charity? What percentage of your entertainment spend is that donation amount?
Let’s not be hypocritical here…we pat ourselves on the back when we donate a couple hundred dollars to charity when we spend multiples of that on fine dining, the extra smart phone you didn’t really need, or that Xbox game you probably won’t even open for months.
looks like marketing people can’t do math once again.
Not sure if that has anything to do with microsoft–marketing people aren’t math people
Funny thing is they could have easily said $10/ donated per download with a million dollar max and it wouldn’t have changed a thing!
Or they could have said they will donate $1 million once IE8 reached its first 1 million downloads.
Both would have been fine. But to say they will donate 8 meals a download, when the charity itself says the money will “help” deliver the food, makes it sound that MS is paying for the actual cost of the food.
But MS is used to exaggeration.
Copied for truthyness!!
The Feeding America site does state “every $1 you donate, Feeding America helps provide 10 pounds of food and grocery products to men, women and children facing hunger in our country.”
http://feedingamerica.org/face…..r-101.aspx
And, that a $25 donation buys 175 meals, coming out to your 15cent number.
http://feedingamerica.org/face…..r-map.aspx
I think you are confusing over-priced “meals” at fast food joints or restaurants with food like rice and soup that can be purchased in bulk.
That may the travel Per Diem MS is planning in the next quarter for it’s employees and they needed a beta test group. If FeedingAmerica can really get 8 meals for $1, then lookout Microsoft employees.
Serious? Is Techcrunch really that screwed up that you’re going to base meal prices on how much gumballs cost at the local 7×11?
Please, get out of your office and volunteer at your local homeless shelter or soup kitchen – and see what the real world is like for some.
Sure, you’re not going to get a steak dinner for 15 cents, but for those that need it, food is food, and “Feeding America” do an excellent job.
oh…Facebook is in big trouble!
thank you…. for informing us…… as you saved me from downloading windows 8
Windows 8?
Ok, so they aren’t exactly slap-up meals, but it’s still good to see companies giving to charity.
People might say $1.15 isn’t much but I think it’s decent – and it’s a hell of a lot more than some companies out there are giving (cba with a flame war so no names mentioned).
They didn’t have to do this, so fair play to them. At the very least, it’s a step in the right direction.
Guess it would have made a boring article to just write that, and I get the whole principle of having an angle, but it feels like the anti-Microsoft thing has been crowbarred in for the sake of it.
Fair play?
They are trying to entice you to download a browser that you may not want to download by playing a trick with your humaniterarian emotions…
End result is that they have cheated you!
And the $1 is not going to do much good anyways as it is not an ongoing process…
holy shit – you can just delete it.
hey man are you against charities.
MSFT are trying to do something nice so just be supportive
Saying “techcrunch is not a twitter whore” is also misleading.
Seriously, I am the last person in the world who will take Microsoft’s side on anything, on any matter. But this just grasping on straws to make a point. You are criticizing someone (or a corporation) for willing to make donations in exchange of downloading something from their website for free which you can uninstall immediately afterwards if you want to.
They are not selling you anything, you are not buying anything, you are not aking any commitments to anything.
Download > install > uninstall.
Techcrunch the new TMZ.
TMZ: oh Look lohan is not wearing any panties. Oh my gosh! Lets take some pictures!
TC: oh look Microsoft is doing misleading marketing by donating money to a good cause in exchange of downloading a piece of software. Oh my gosh! Lets take some screenshots!
Just to be clear, the site says completed downloads, not installations.
Using their terminology, you probably don’t even have to install it.
i couldn’t agree more.
I applaud Microsoft on their effort to feed poor starving Americ….. Oh wait, no I dont.