Website www.ripple.org | Commercial No | |
Type of site Charity, click-to-donate site Created by Simon Griffiths, Jehan Ratnatunga, Mack Nevill and Matthew Tilleard Alexa rank 8,462,448 (Global 03/2017) Launched May 4, 2007; 9 years ago (2007-05-04) | ||
Ripple was a non-profit click-to-donate internet site and search engine which passed 100% of its revenue to other charities. Launched on May 4, 2007, they made their revenue by attaining sponsorship from advertisers in return for delivering users who will see their advertisements. Ripple.org was named #23 in BRW Top 100 web 2.0 sites of 2008.
Contents
The co-founders of Ripple were Jehan Ratnatunga, Matthew Tilleard, Mack Nevill and Simon Griffiths, a graduate from Melbourne University.
As of March 2017 Ripple.org only contains a link to WaterAid Australia.
Features
The Ripple web site generated revenue through clicking and search.
A user could click to choose a preferred form of charity, bringing up an advertisement from a sponsor. The sponsor payed Ripple every time an advertisement is viewed, Ripple assigns the sponsor payment to the charity of the web user's choice.
Users could use the in-built search engine, powered by Google Co-op. Each search generated advertising revenue.
Ripple also had an interface through online social networks such as Facebook and MySpace. Users were able to add applets that function in the same way as the Ripple web site to their profiles and display how philanthropic they are via a 'contributions' count.
Impact
Ripple supports the WaterAid Australia, Oxfam, Oaktree Foundation, and the Grameen Foundation. "Mr Tilleard says they are adding a 'carbon charity' soon and sees the site eventually listing up to 10 charities." Although the affiliate marketing and search interface techniques are not new, donating all proceeds to charity is rare, according to Lia Timson writing in The Age.