Web 2 Ireland

Ammado, which combines social networking with charitable giving, linking the non-profits with people who want to support them, has unveiled its online donation system – Ammado Giving Circle.

The sbpost has more coverage interviewing its founders Peter Conlon and Anna Kupka – which includes some interesting quotes and comments

“founders claim will help it become ''one of the biggest internet companies in the world''…..''We have created microphilanthropy,…”kept Ammado under wraps for the past three years, while its technology was built from scratch. The company now employs about 70 people at its headquarters in Dublin, regional headquarters in Singapore, and in 11 other locations, including Amsterdam, Washington, Dhaka in Bangladesh and Novi Sad in Serbia.”…..”For donations of that type, Ammado charges a 10 per cent processing fee, so a company wanting to donate €1,000, for example, would make a total payment of €1,100. Kupka said the system could be used to increase employee motivation and allow companies with staff from different countries indirectly to make donations to charities outside Ireland.”

Last week at TC50, a competitor launched – Causecast. – which had very positive reviews.

Update: Anna from Ammado – has provided a comment – which provides more information around Ammado donations – which is very welcome.

“Just to clarify: for individuals ammado charges 5% per donation. These 5% stay in the ammado foundation and help us to cover the cost which are very substantial as we have build a global micro-payment platform, accepting 33 currencies and nearly every payment method around the world (further payment methods are being added).

The 10% you have mentioned are an administration fee for an employer solution: we encourage employers to boost employee motivation by allocating a certain amount – let's say €10 per employee – to all their employees and allow them to allocate the amount to whatever nonprofits they wish. The employee could therefore give 1 Euro of these 10 to their old school in Belarus, 2.50 Euro to a charity in their hometown, 2 Euro for Amnesty in Ireland etc. It can be sliced down to as little as 4cent. That's why we call it micro-philanthropy. Everyone can build their own giving portfolio and if you wish to, people can show whom they are spporting by displaying their ammado Giving Circle (we also have a bebo applicaton for the circle). Cheers, Anna”

Just saw over on Pat Phelan’s blog that MAXroam has saved their customers over a million dollars in roaming charges since they launched. That’s one hell of an achievement in nine months.

I still remember them blowing everyone away at TC40. They so should have won the grand prize there even if the billionaire Marc Andreessen didn’t understand why anyone would want to save money on roaming mobile charges

Now if only Pat could do something about roaming data, I’d be forced to marry him.