Comments - Is FreeRice.com making $150k each day in profits?

#1 /* 2 years, 4 months ago */

I think you are highly over-estimating the CTR My website gets about 0.5% CTR on average through google (60,000 page views per day).... so 1/10th what you have posted. by my napkin math thats only $15k (still nothing to sneeze at). But my site is still one that people generally only stay at for a couple pages... presumably people will stay for 10s of page views on this site, giving you an even lower CTR. but i digress....

personally if i were to estimate the revenue i would say $5k a day. Just my 2 cents.

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Mike Valstar Anonymous User

#2 /* 2 years, 4 months ago */

"If we went on average AdSense advertising rates, we're looking at 50 clicks every 1000 pageviews and each click being worth $0.20. So based on the ~15million pageviews figure, revenue could be upward of: $149,860."

I don't know about other users of Freerice.com, but I have never clicked an ad, even after 1000 vocabulary words. I bet most people never even look at the ads when they are playing the vocab game. There is no way he is getting 50 out of 1000 pageviews, more like 1 out of every 1000, which would put his totals near 3k per day, spending most of it for bandwidth and rice. Even if he makes $1000/day, I don't mind if he is feeding 6000 people at .5kg/person/day. More power to him.

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TaxMan Normal User

#3 — Author comment /* 2 years, 4 months ago */

My website gets about 0.5% CTR

Noted. That's quite poor but see my reply to TaxMan...

I agree with what you say about the CT rates, TaxMan. I I've just noticed the links go through LinkSynergy. I'm not sure who they're run by (server down?) so I can't see what models they provide but I would think a CPM model would apply better to this site. And you must remember that having your name on a site like this pseudo-philanthropy so big companies are more likely to pay out more as it's for a good cause.

My real problem here is just the money, however much, potentially being abused - This is why charities register in the first place.

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Oli Numero Uno

#4 /* 2 years, 4 months ago */

You're an idiot. http://reddit.com/info/60ftm/comments/c02gf4s

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Alaska Miller Anonymous User

#5 /* 2 years, 4 months ago */

I don't know but looks like the figures just jumped.
and i think it is a great way to form a business to do good. i hope he gets rich off it.

and forming a charity is very hard for an individual.
registration means lawyers and accounting fees that are required every quarter and no sane person would do such a thing until he was sure he had the cash flow to cover it.
and charity doesn't mean non profit for the individuals involved. we all know many people are getting rich at the biggest charities through salaries etc.

i don't mind if he personally makes money.
i think he should for doing good and coming up with a great way to do it.

after all he could have gone into the weapons business and gotten rich. would that have been a better way? I think not.

vivzizi.com
the fizz of life

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Geopilot Anonymous User

#6 /* 2 years, 4 months ago */

So... How much money should someone be allowed to make for running a charity?

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Harry Anonymous User

#7 /* 2 years, 4 months ago */

Why do you even care? What's it to you that he's making money? Why is it any of your business if he makes a business of it or if he registers as a charity? It's HIS decision. You've got no say... you're not a journalist working on a Pulitzer.... so you're concerned about someones private finances.... why? You're making something off of submitting your lame story to reddit and digg aren't you?

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Bishop Anonymous User

#8 /* 2 years, 4 months ago */

Good article, but your CTR and payment amounts are estimated way, way too high. System-wide I think Adsense gets between 1-2% CTR, although a site like this, 0.5% is more likely. And $0.20? No way, 5 cents maybe. The worse the CTR usually the worse the payment via Adsense. Still, there may be some profit here, and if so, excellent. The rice doesn't just appear somewhere, I'm sure there are other costs involved as well. Wish I'd have thought of the idea.

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JoeFriday Anonymous User

#9 — Author comment /* 2 years, 4 months ago */

Harry, you've asked a good question there. The humanist in me believes if you're going to provide a product or service saying you're going to be doing good things to needy people then you must (as in mandated to do so) be upfront about what you're doing and what the quantities you're dealing with are.

I believe this is already legislated for companies that say they donate portions of revenue. One example (that I was linked to on the Reddit thread) is ethos water who announce that they donate an entire 2% of stock's price to clean water programs.

Bishop: It's just morally fucked. He stands to profit very significantly from (effectively) conning people into thinking they're doing measurable good when really they'd be better off walking do to the shops buying a sack of rice and sending it to the UN WFP. Hell, just sending them a dollar would probably do the poor people more good. That's 3kg of rice!

Perhaps you should see this as my attempt to educate people to look deeper into things like this before they give their favour.

You're making something off of submitting your lame story to reddit and digg aren't you?

No. Can you see any adverts on this page?

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Oli Numero Uno

#10 /* 2 years, 4 months ago */

I don't have a clue how much money this guy could be making but he is spending what ever he makes on rice.

Rome, 9 November 2007 - The head of the UN’s World Food Programme Josette Sheeran has acclaimed the phenomenally successful internet-based vocabulary game FreeRice as an example of the Web’s power to mobilise millions of people in the fight against global hunger.

Every grain of rice is essential in the fight against hunger.

Josette Sheeran, WFP Executive Director
Yesterday marked the one billionth grain of rice donated to WFP through an innovative, dynamic online campaign – enough to feed more than 50,000 people for one day.

“Every grain of rice is essential in the fight against hunger,” said WFP Executive Director Josette Sheeran , adding that hunger claims more lives than AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria combined.

“FreeRice really hits home how the Web can be harnessed to raise awareness and funds for the world’s number one emergency. The site is a viral marketing success story with more than one billion grains of rice donated in just one month to help tackle hunger worldwide.”

Spread the word

For every correct answer to FreeRice’s online vocabulary game, the site donates 10 grains of rice to its official humanitarian partner, WFP .

Just 830 grains of rice were donated on FreeRice’s October 7 launch date. Since then, bloggers and social networking sites like YouTube and Facebook have helped spread the word and, on November 8 alone, over 70 million grains were donated – equivalent to more than seven million clicks on the site.

FreeRice is the latest brainchild of US online fundraising pioneer John Breen, who first tied funds to clicks on the Web in 1999 with the Hunger Site, at the time, a WFP partner. Breen runs the Poverty.com website, a portal for information and facts about hunger and related diseases.

FreeRice relies on private companies’ ad space payments to underwrite donations to WFP.

Nate

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