Feed the world while feeding your head

freerice.com is:

"a vocabulary-testing multiple-choice website. Click on the answer that best defines the word. If you get it right, you get a harder word. If wrong, you get an easier word. For each word you get right, 10 grains of rice are donated to the United Nations World Food Program."

And it would appear it isn't a scam. However as LanceWiggs reports: [edited]

There have been 1.2 billion grains given out so far. That’s 120m correct answers - call it 130m page views.

At a CPM ($ per 1000 impressions) of, say, $20, that’s $2.6 million in income. At a CPM of 10 that’s $1.3m. They feel like a good range, but really I’m just guessing here. I’m confident that the revenue is at least $1m.

Rice is light: 1000 grains is about 26 grams, so 10 grains is about 0.26 grams.

Rice is cheap: 1 bagged metric tonne is $350. So 1.2 billion rice grains is about 3,120 tonnes, or $1.09m FOB. Therefore the site owners are making everything above a CPM of about $8.

Advertisers - if you are paying more than that, then you are enriching one John Breen, who is a very smart cookie who just happens to have also collected $1m for global poverty efforts.

I love this, and I love the moral dilemma aspect as well. Is it right to enrich John Breen while you are enriching poor children?

My answer is yes - as the $1m worth of rice is $1m more rice than the UN had before, and you’ve had some enjoyment along the way. Your opinion may differ, and perhaps John Breen is a non-profit, and the funds channeled to worthy causes or business building?

Thanks to photogabble for the original link to the free rice site.
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