Kan you reed this? Catch the spelling errors? Good. Then you can help children learn to read and write correctly in a new campaign by Google that will benefit UNICEF's Education Fund.
The "Donate a Word" effort is the brainchild of two Miami Advertising School students, Lisa Zeitlhuber and Katharina Schmitt. ("It’s bloody brilliant. UNICEF, Google, hire these folks," implores The Next Web, and that's seconded here.)
It works like this: Using Google's Chrome Web browser, the spell-check window catches misspellings and kicks in a "Donate a Word" option. For example, when "window" is misspelled (see video), you get this message: "You misspelled 'window.' Do you want to donate these 5 characters for 50 cents?" and you're offered a "donate" button.
"Since the spell-check works over the browser, the idea would work in cooperation with Google Chrome so that 'Donate a Word' comes automatically with the next browser update, spreading UNICEF’s message on every website," The Next Web notes.
It's a clever, positive and inspirational effort on all fronts — and certainly can only help Chrome grow an even bigger market share. Chrome, which competes with other Web browsers like Microsoft's Internet Explorer, Mozilla's Firefox and Apple's Safari, "surpassed" a 10 percent share of "global browser usage" for the first time in January, according to Net Applications.
Related stories:
- Lease Google Chromebook for $20/month
- Google Chrome 11 adds speech-to-text feature
- Google reveals Chrome notebooks, Web app store
Check out Technolog, Gadgetbox, Digital Life and In-Game on Facebook, and on Twitter, follow Suzanne Choney.