I guess I’ve been living under a rock in the last couple of months. There are so many things that I’ve missed. I used to be the first-to-know in almost anything. I guess this probably has to do with my news-diet program. I have refused to read or watch any news from major news outlet in the last couple of months; for a simple reason knowing these news does not add any values to my life.

Anyway, I have seen this image on my Windows Live Messenger (WLM) Contact List but I didn’t know what it was and never bothered to find out. As it turned out, it’s an initiative Microsoft started back in March 2007 to connect the internet users with social or not-for-profit organization through Windows Live Messenger.

You get the icon displayed next to your name by entering a specific code for a specific organization participated in the program. I chose StopGlobalWarming.org after watching Al Gore’s An Inconvenience Truth. I entered *help in front of my display name. The icon shows up automatically when I entered the code. You need to use Windows Live Messenger version 8.1 or above and this only works for US users.

(Update 6/15/2007) Displaying the icon works anywhere in the world. Not sure about the revenue sharing though. So go ahead and do it anyway even if you don’t live in US. It helps reaching out to your WLM contacts.

Once you enable on your display name; each time you initiate a chat, Microsoft shares a portion of the advertising revenue with the organization of your choice. Microsoft guaranteed a minimum donation of US$ 100,000 to each organization during the first year of the program; a worthy cause. For those who live overseas, you still can contribute by asking your friends that live in the US to do it on their WLM.

Here is the list of organizations that you can choose from

So go ahead, your friend that you haven’t chatted with in a long time. The ones you’ve been wanting to talk to but just never got to it; and now it’s been a long time since you talked so it probably feels a little awkward. Now you don’t have to feel that way because you have a good compelling reason to chat. And if you are at work and your boss caught you chatting, just show him this article and ask him to do the same. Tell him you are making the world better, one person at a time.

So please support your charity and if you are not using Windows Live Messenger, please download it. You can check out the official site for more info.

Make a difference today …

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