So, looking at my buddy list, most people know about the I'M initiative, which is a marketing / charity campaign microsoft has been doing for the last 7 months that donates money to any of 9 organizations based on a string people put in their friendly name on messenger (which shows up as a little colorful I'M icon).  The funny thing is that, looking at the most recent stats, unless things pick up, that I'M icon will end up having been pointless.

 

As of fairly recently, the page was updated to say that $143,500 dollars have been raised so far.  It sounds like a lotish until you look at the FAQ:

    Each of the nine organizations is guaranteed a minimum of $100,000 during the first year of the program.

I think that was a pretty generous stipulation by Microsoft, but the irony of it is that (as I understand it) the final result will be Microsoft donating exactly $100,000 to each organization after the first year, because none of the 9 programs will have received enough to go over the minimum.  (the distribution is definitely not even, but I'm guessing there won't be one that gets enough to go over $100,000).  I could be wrong, and they could be adding donations raised on top of the minimum, but that's not how it's worded - and if that was the case, then they would say that the total raised so far was $1,043,500.  :-)

 

It would appear that microsoft has mimicked the problem of picking political candidates - if everyone picks one that matches their views exactly, their vote ends up not making a difference, so we all just pick whoever we like most (or dislike least) between the two.

 

In the spirit of that, everyone on the internet please pick the two that you all like the most, and then each one of you just pick one or the other, because right now, I'M looks like a presidential primary debate.