Thank you Amazon.com (and America)!
Amidst all the hoopla about who gave ‘more’ to the Tsunami disaster in South Asia, Amazon.com has silently collected more than $15 million from its customers within seven days. More than 175,000 Amazon customers had contributed to the fund raising effort, which was started almost immediately after the disaster unfolded last week.
Amazon made it so simple for people, so that they could contribute with just two clicks from their account. This made almost all of them who visited Amazon to give something to the victims. In addition, Amazon ran a huge banner in their home page, which is normally reserved for high profile vendors who pay thousands of dollars per day to grab the spot. It’s so humbling that Amazon gave up the home page to this fund raising effort during a busy holiday period. I’m sure Amazon might have lost some millions of dollars in advertising revenues during post Christmas, but they gained the respect of millions of loyal customers like me. I was really moved by the efforts of Amazon, which paved the way for other high profile online sites to do the same, following them.
In addition, there is also something called the ‘customer distraction phenomena’ in online retailing. When someone visits your website to buy a non-essential item like a book or an electronic gadget, your website should not distract the focus of the customer to do something else. If you do, the customer will most likely not buy the item that he/she intended. If you were a savvy net shopper, you’d know what I’m talking about. Just go to your favorite online store and click on an irrelevant link - a news item for example. You will most likely end up somewhere else, and may not buy an item from the store.I’m sure your store won’t have one. If they do, they are losing money.
What Amazon did for the last seven plus days would have definitely impacted their sales in a very big way. Customers who visit Amazon.com look for non-essential items. By distracting them to do something else – that too asking them to spend money on charity - would have definitely prevented them from buying something at Amazon. Amazon not only collected millions, but also lost some.
The efforts of Amazon also tells us some great things about the Internet. It would have been virtually impossible for a third party to collect 15 million dollars from its retail customers within days, ten years ago. The Internet has given us a great platform that we don’t even realize. Being a technologist, I feel really proud about it and feel grateful to those made the Internet possible.
Speaking of relief funds, I get upset when the rest of the world complains about Americans. It’s not fair to stamp the American people as ‘stingy’. Americans always gave a lot for charities. Whenever the Americans were given a chance to ‘see’ the tragedy, I’m sure they gave a lot. This is the first time mainstream American media covered a non-American event up to this depth. How on earth does average Americans know what’s happening in Sri Lanka, when the mainstream media is busy showing Janet Jackson’s breast? Most Americans didn’t even know that there is a country called Sri Lanka. I doubt even President Bush knew about some of the countries that were impacted by the disaster. I worked for a very famous mapping company based in Chicago in the late nineties. My project manager didn’t know the existence of a country called Sri Lanka. I had to show him Sri Lanka on his company’s ‘own’ map. So, if you happen to have past bitter experiences with America and their ‘give-aways’, please blame the media and the geography teachers, not the people.
If you still have doubts about Americans, and still think that they are stingy, please visit Amazon.com and see for yourself the marvelous job that they’ve done. That’s just the tip of the iceberg. Pfizer has so far given $35 million in cash and medicine. Almost all other major US drug companies have given more than $30 million combined. Bill Gates gave $3 million from his foundation. I saw a photograph where kids in Omaha, Nebraska, collecting money for the victims. It’s time the rest of the world gave credit to Americans, or at least start thinking about it. Amazon.com is a good starting point for those who want to get a sense of average Americans. America is a lot more than what the rest of the world may think.
N.Sivakumar is the author of ‘Dude, did I steal your job – Debugging Indian Computer Programmers’. Visit http://www.divinetree.com to learn more about his book. This column originally appeared on Urban Indian newspaper.
Intersting view
Mr. Kumar, keep up your writing and views...
- Mohan [Author http://www.garamchai.com/book/]
Mr Kumar, I agree that the me is too "me"
A new look has to be taken, at the algorithm for forming a default subject line. Hint: don't take a substring, consisting of characters: take a phrase consisting of words.
Default Subject Lines
A new look has to be taken, at the algorithm for forming a default subject line. Hint: don't take a substring, consisting of characters: take a phrase consisting of words.
Agreed. This is on my to-do list. Until I get it working, I've just been putting in my own subject.
Thanks,
Dan
Thanks for your hard work in
Thanks for your hard work in maintaining this site, Dan. My comment above sounds patronizing and was not intended to be.
That clown who spammed your site was a good example of Developer Moral Deficit.
No Worries
"My comment above sounds patronizing and was not intended to be."
I didn't take it that way, Edward. No worries.
Dan
Dear Ed, First of all, Ver
Dear Ed,
First of all, Very sorry for not thanking and replying to your prev comments. I see a 'great soul' in you with great Generousity and kindness towards human beings. This little planet needs more people like you with similar ideologies to make it a much a better place.
When the British left Ceylon, it became Sri Lanka. It's a beautiful country.. But unfortunately the countrymen don't realize it, and they fight over some silly things which could have been sorted out with mutual understandings. Hope the Tsunami brings them together.
I think once in a while mother nature reminds us that it could be the ultimate WMD( Weapon of mass destruction). Hope those who fight realize this.
Siva
Thanks Siva Dude!
I will look for your book, it sounds interesting.
Years ago, Chicago data processing shops started to bring Indian chaps on board and since I am an aging hippie (if not in appearance) I was like, cool.
Now they are just "chaps" which is how chaps need to think of chaps.
But why is it that developers like me and Sundar, or my kid and Vijay, naturally collaborate while management makes elaborate plans to keep us at logger heads?
Let me give you an example. I'd coded a solution at one client which included some Godzilla SQL calls, neatly formatted for execution on the client side. Sundar showed me how they'd create excess network traffic and I was like cool, and we made my calls into stored procedures.
Later on, I discovered, at the last minute, that we needed to make a series of systematic changes to 250+ stored procedures while upgrading from SQL 6.5 to 7. I brought in an ancestor of my VB parser, changed it to parse SQL, and made the changes in minutes.
We didn't tell the boss because he would have had a FIT and probably made us work 16 hours a day making the changes by hand.
Sometimes I wonder if managers are necessary. But then I get made into a manager and I do fairly well since it gets me out of my s*t.
I Can Vouch for Siva's Book
I'm nearly done reading it, and planning to write a review for the magazine soon. Order a copy. It's a unique book, and a fresh message. I'll save further comment for my review.
Dan
Ed, I'll email you an ebook.
Dear Ed,
Thanks for your comment.
Don't buy the book. It's only available in the US, and you may have to pay a lot for shipping. I'll send the ebook thru Dan and he'll forward you the copy. I'd like to get your opinion.
Rgds
Siva
Mr Kumar, I agree that the me
Mr Kumar, I agree that the media coverage has been first-rate. But part of the reason is that the disaster coverage is "safer" than coverage of our Bogus Journey to Iraq.
Doesn't surprise me about Chicago: Chicago people, apart from its thriving international immigrant communities (such as the Indian peoples around Devon Avenue) have a stunning disinterest in the outside world.
But I should confess to you that I had to look up Sri Lanka on the map. This is because my geography teaching at the hands of the good Sisters of Catholic school took place in the 1950s when the island was Ceylon.
Geography like foreign language becomes meaningful to us only when we travel, it seems. I now know that Hong Kong hangs off the coast of China whereas before I came here I might have thought it on the coast itself. The Star ferry is an object lesson that one must endure what at times is quite an adventurous, if rather short, sea voyage (including for some passengers mal de mer) to get to Hong Kong proper.
Many Americans think of Fiji as part of Japan. Before I worked in Fiji, I knew, idly, that it is an island nation but would have been hard-put to emplace it on a map.
Here is my own donation record for your critique.
I do not use credit cards despite being a world traveler. Therefore last Saturday I donated 800.00 Hong Kong using a box at the Salisbury YMCA for relief, with the proper authorization. After payday next week I shall donate 1600.00 HK.
Due to my unwillingness to use credit cards, I was unable to join the initial fund raising.
A total, of 300.00 USA, is a pittance and a widow's mite but at least it hurts as giving should.
Billy Kwan, in The Year of Living Dangerously, says that we should give with love to whoever God puts in our path. HK doesn't have many beggars, nor does Shenzen, but there are some hard cases who I see regularly. For example, just before I get on the train at Lo Wu for HK, and just after the girls in the barber shop/bordello cry to me hey big fella come on down, an old China man without legs smiles at me because he knows he's in the chips.
But five yuan to me is pocket change. Plus my kid is still in school, and the lion's share of his support has been contributed by a hard working and thrifty former wife.
Use every man to his deserts, and who should 'scape whipping? Hamlet said that.