'Social currency' website launched

IT | Kirsty Weakley | 18 Nov 2011

A website that rewards users with a ‘social currency’ for sharing, volunteering or donating to charity launched earlier this week.

People can sign into the Blue Dot website using their Facebook account and then earn dots through activity on social networks such as ‘liking’ a charity and sharing on Twitter. The dots can then be used to gain access to exclusive offerings from celebrities and online content.

Charities that are signed up to Justgiving are able to receive support from Blue Dot users and 100 per cent of the donation goes straight to the charity. In the first 48 hours more than 70 UK charities received a cash donation.

The website has partnered with the vinspired young volunteers service to direct people to volunteering opportunities where dots can also be earned by completing volunteering activities.

On the launch day Noel Gallagher made the last tickets to his debut UK tour available to Blue Dot users and exclusive backstage content from Children in Need is available on the website to people who have donated at least £5 to the charity.

The initiative was created by Chris Ward, a former creative director of Comic Relief. He said: “I created Blue Dot, as a genuinely new and innovative way to enable every single cause to create that same impact, every day of the year.”

Natasha Hill, marketing director at Cancer Research UK, said: “Blue Dot can be to charity what Nectar is to shopping.”

Directory: Cancer Research UK (CRUK)

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