Archive for the ‘Politics’ Category
Causes App Critique
Before I joined the CS3216 class, I promised Prof. Ben I will do his homework, so I decided I should really do it. Here’s my critique. To save him the agony, I have decided not to write a thesis and keep it short. 
Anyway…
So what is Causes?
Technical description. It’s an application in Facebook that allows a user to make a difference by donating to a cause.
Non-technical description. It’s something in Facebook that allows people to make a difference by donating to a cause.
Hokay, enough of rubbish. So Causes aims to solve some problems, and in my opinion it is well positioned to solve what is known as the Social & Economic Injustice.
Socially and economically, we have created great disparities of wealth. A minority of the world’s population (17%) consume most of the world’s resources (80%), leaving almost 5 billion people to live on the remaining 20%. As a result, billions of people are living without the very basic necessities of life – food, water, housing and sanitation.
If the top 20% of the world’s population is 1.2 billion, then I am quite confident that Facebook users are amongst the top 5% (~300 million).
The problem with traditional forms of donation
The problem with traditional forms of donation are that they lack public visibility and transparency on a global scale. NPOs depend highly on volunteers to do all sorts of things like donation drives to keep them alive. There aren’t many self-sustainable foundations like Bill and Melinda Gates around. And if you haven’t forgotten the NKF saga where the infamous quote on peanuts came about, it’s obvious that we don’t really know where the money goes.
Basic Concepts
- The Power to Make a Difference as a Social Media. This app basically demonstrates the power of social media and that it should not be underestimated. As of this writing, the Hope for Haiti Now cause has raised US$42,930 (S$60,617).
- The Power to Make a Difference as an Individual. Unlike traditional donations (I’m referring to the tin-can school boys and girls at MRT stations), this app allows you ample time to search for a cause that you think really matters (than somebody preaching some unknown cause to you), read all about it before you donate. The best part is that it shows you the total amount (transparency) and others who have donated (confidence).
- Transparency. This app seems to have done a good job by naming the beneficary organization (usually registered in the US) and by reflecting the total amount donated. However, the same old problem still exists – we don’t know where the money goes.
Technical Concepts
- Main Navigation. Simplicity is the key. The adaptation of the Facebook UI is great, making it look clean. If you haven’t realized, clicking on Best Of brings you out of Facebook to www.causes.com which completely copied Facebook’s top bar.
- Front Page. It seems like the front page of the Causes app has a similar concept to BOOMZcart. It recommends you potential causes and also shows the causes that your friends are participating in, but there’s some issues I observed.
- The recommendations don’t seem to match any of my profile interests. Is it a targeted recommendation, or a random recommendation?
- I see four causes, but they’re all the same person. It should show four unique friends instead.
- Individual Cause Page. In my opinion this has been very well executed by mimicking Facebook’s user profile page. It provides user interaction (via Home tab), sufficient details (via About and Impact tabs), network information (via Members tab).
- Browse Causes. Under the Find Causes navigation menu. It’s broken (returns empty page).
Food for Thought
- Show me the money. Beneficiary organizations should provide detailed breakdown of where the donation money went. I’m not sure if this information is easy to obtain as I’m not a US citizen.
- Real People, Real Responses. What if somebody from the Haiti earthquake came in and said, “Thank you for your donations. My family survived the ordeal.” I would hope this to happen.
P.S. Sorry I wrote this post in a rush and it looks abit random with broken sentences and such. Hope you can understand what I’m writing
Wow, US is in Deeper Shit
Two news stories on Straits Times caught my attention. You should check them out too.
WASHINGTON – THE US debt is on track to hit a congressionally proposed debt ceiling of 14.3 trillion (S$60.6 trillion) by the end of February, the Treasury said on Wednesday, a day ahead of a key vote to raise it to that level.
NEW YORK – BAILED out US insurance giant AIG, now 80 per cent government owned, will distribute about US$100 million (S$141 million) of bonuses to employees on Wednesday, a person close to the matter said.
Wow, maybe the US should be charged credit-card rates for the money they owe and the Treasury folks should contact our National Council on Problem Gambling.
And whatever the rest of the story is about justifying the $100m in bonuses is just pure BS.
US is going downhill. Some other country will take over the world soon. They are in shit. Deep, deep shit.