Over the weekend there was a big kerfuffle following a tweet posted by Bing where they were willing to donate $1 for every retweet of their original message up to a maximum of $100,000. In the mess that followed, the social media dweebs got their panties all up in a bunch and accused Microsoft, and Bing of trying to profit – marketing wise – off of the disaster.
Holden Page had a great post here earlier calling out this stupidity but this mess, that as Paul O’Flaherty pointed out in today’s Daily Brief show could have been handled better, hasn’t stopped Microsoft continuing to support the relief effort for Japan.
Even as the fallout of the Bing retweet effort is still resonating, with bing giving the $100,000 anyway, Microsoft has announced that they will be donating and additional $250,000 along with $1.5 million worth of free software. This is also just a part of Microsoft’s overall response to the disaster that has devastated Japan.
In addition to the money and software, Microsoft, which operates a data center and employs 2,500 in Japan, is making its cloud computing service available to responders on the ground.
That said, if Microsoft is getting slammed for its Bing effort, why don’t people get upset with companies like Pocter & Gamble who ship cases upon cases of their dish detergents to areas hit by massive oil spills, as well as sending semi trailers of self-contained washing machines and Tide products to places like New Orleans and then in turn use those ‘good deeds’ in advertising campaigns?
Oh wait, I get it. It’s Microsoft.
[Cross-posted at Winextra]
