Feed the world

IT sounds too good to be true - you can "donate" free food to the world's poorest people just by clicking a single button on a website.

You need not register, you need not provide any money, all you have to do is click once per day, and the Hunger Site's sponsors will pay for a cup of wheat, rice, or maize.

At the moment there are four sponsors, each donating a quarter of a cup of food for each daily click per user.

The site (www.thehungersite.com) uses simple web technology to track daily usage and asks people to only click the donate button once each day. Additional clicks will be ignored.

There's a reason for this. The whole point of the site is collaboration and worldwide co-operation.

The sponsors pay less than a cent each per user per click, so for one individual donation there is very little outlay.

But over time, with many people making a single donation each day, the organisers can gain enough income to make a sizeable contribution to the distribution of food in the Third World.

The site is deliberately low-key and simple, and even the sponsors' logos are kept to a discreet size. John Breen, its creator, says: "That was the plan and I would greatly prefer to keep it that way."

Rather than capitalise on the site's success and potential for drawing in traffic, Breen thinks the simple approach has more long-term potential.

But he adds: "If it came down to the site's survival and/or greatly increased effectiveness, I would consider changing it."

According to the site's figures, 24,000 people die of hunger each day, equivalent to one death every 3.6 seconds. The Hunger Site concentrates its efforts on the 32 countries with the highest mortality rates.

The food paid for by the site is distributed by the United Nations World Food Programme (http://www.wfp.org/info/index.html).

So far, nearly 1.7million donations have been made through the site since it went live on June 1. That equals about £31,000 of aid.

Breen, a 42-year-old computer programmer and qualified economist, originally began with an idea that was quite different.

"My original idea was to send pencils, papers, and books for educational use in developing countries.

"But I later found that hunger was the major educational problem."

Of course, making a donation without giving anything might keep some consciences clear, but the site encourages people to consider expanding their charitable efforts with some payments of real money and has a list of links to other longer-established charities.

It would seem that if only one site was worthy of being bookmarked this summer, the Hunger Site would be it. Favourite sites THE Hunger Site has already been bookmarked by at least one reader of this column. Ronald Potent, who lives in Mollymook, New South Wales, Australia, sent me a list of his favourite websites this week after reading the Lancashire Evening Telegraph online. (http://www.thisislancashire.co.uk).

And Ronald, whose brother-in-law in Sydney, Harry Johnson, grew up in Darwen, lists the Hunger Site among his favourites.

Others include Arts and Letters Daily (http://www.cybereditions.com/aldaily), a digest of art and literature news, and E-Greetings (http://www.egreetings.com) which allows you to send free digital cards and animations over the web.

He also likes Netsurfer Digest (http://www.netsurf.com/nsd), which claims to be the oldest existing web-based e-zine. Subscribe for free and you can have internet news delivered to your desktop.

I'm always pleased to hear what sites other people have bookmarked - it can be the cyber equivalent of looking through someone's diary! So why not send me a list of your top five sites? They could end up being featured on this page. Camera ban DOES anyone have the right to set up a webcam in a public place? That's the question being considered by officials in Hong Kong.

The government there has just ordered a hidden camera to be removed from a public beach after a company used it to transmit live footage of sunbathers on the internet.

City Telecom began putting footage filmed at popular Deep Water Bay on its website last week, said company spokeswoman Wence Wong. Sunbathers did not know they were being filmed.

"The idea is to allow net users to see something they don't normally see," Mr Wong said. The camera was discovered by municipal officials who ordered it to be removed. A spokeswoman for the council, which manages all public beaches in Hong Kong said the council has the right to ensure beaches are properly run. The city's privacy commissioner is studying the case. The frog song HOW do you make a website about chlorine interesting? Add a rapping Ecuadorian tree frog, that's how.

http://www.chlorine.org.uk Beach-combers THE Royal Society for the Protection of Birds is inviting young nature-lovers to help with a litter survey of the country's beaches, using a form available on the internet.

So if you're heading off to the coast during the summer, why not visit the RSPB's website first for a copy of the form?

http://www.rspb.org.uk/youth See Robbie in concert ROBBIE Williams' massive Dublin concert later this month is a sell-out, but fans who did not get tickets will be able to watch it on the internet.

Billed as Europe's first triple simulcast, the Slane Castle gig on August 28 will be shown on Sky One, Sky Box Office and a new entertainment website, SkyRocket.

"To be able to perform live in front of a truly global audience just blows my mind - but it is scary too," singer Williams said.

Sky subscribers will not have to pay extra for the Box Office broadcast, which goes out at 8pm on August 28.

Sky Networks managing director Elisabeth Murdoch said: "Never before has such comprehensive coverage been lined up for a rock concert, which will mark yet another first for Sky."

The 80,000 tickets for the Slane Castle concert sold out more quickly than any other recent event at the venue.

Williams was the first artist to feature in a pay-per-view musical event on Sky.

Fans can find his own official website at http://www.robbiewilliams.com.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.