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FreeRice is a website where users play various educational, multiple-choice games in order to fight world hunger. For every answer the user answers correctly, 10 grains of rice are donated. The games include English vocabulary (the game the site began with), multiplication tables, pre-algebra, chemistry (basic and intermediate), English grammar, basic foreign language vocabulary for English speakers (French, German, Italian, and Spanish), geography (world capitals and country identification), and identification of famous artwork. In March of 2009 FreeRice was donated to the UN World Food Programme.
Subjects
Although English vocabulary is the original and default subject, players may choose from different subjects; including mathematics, chemistry, geography, art, and foreign languages (French, Spanish, Italian, and German). The maximum level of difficulty varies between subjects.
Sustenance
In exchange for advertisements on the website, various sponsors donate the money necessary to pay for the rice and other costs to run FreeRice. The donations are distributed by the United Nations's World Food Programme (WFP), starting with Bangladesh. FreeRice's partner is the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University.[1] The most common countries to transport rice to are Bangladesh, Cambodia, Bhutan, Uganda, and Nepal, even though it can travel all over the world (as of early 2008). By this time, the site's creator had given over US$213,000 to the WFP which encourages people to visit freerice.com.[2] On 20 November, 2007, the WFP launched a campaign to "feed a child for Thanksgiving."[3]
Effectiveness
In its first six months of operation, FreeRice donated over 42 billion grains of rice. One month after the inception of the viral marketing program, users had earned enough points for one billion grains of rice. The United Nation's World Food Programme stated that this amount could feed 50,000 people for one day.[4] Thus, approximately 20,000 grains of rice provide enough caloric intake to sustain an adult for one day. Using this calculation, enough rice is donated to feed about 7,000 people daily.[5] Since its inception, as of January 23, 2010, FreeRice has donated over 74 billion grains of rice.
Scripts
Since FreeRice became well-known through Digg.com and other news sources,[6] many programming-adept users created scripts to automatically play the game for them. The scripts operate far faster than humans alone and run for 24 hours a day. At first, the scripts got only ≈1/4 of the words correct by random chance. Eventually, these bots were adapted with automated online dictionary search, dictionary files, and word database dumps so the programs can choose the correct answers the first time more often. The word database dumps were created so when the incorrect answer was chosen, the bots would record the correct answer the next page would show. Thus, the bot would choose the correct answer whenever it happened upon the same words later. Due to the growing number of scripts used on FreeRice, the number of rice donated has remarkably risen. Currently there are no rules governing "ricebots", as they are called. Until those rules are formed, anyone is free to program and use the scripts. With a delay of about 3 seconds between iterations, it is estimated that a script can feed about 8 people per day, if running 24/7.[7] The idea was taken even further to create a multi-threaded bot which can run fifty or more browser instances at a time, enough to produce as much as 600,000 grains of rice per hour or to feed 720 people per day.[8] One script with 1,000 threads was able to donate over 3,000,000 grains in just a few hours.
Donated rice comes from the advertisements from sponsors, therefore abuse of scripts will likely lead to catastrophe, as advertisers prefer that actual people view their advertisements. Knowing the existence of the bots, FreeRice updated their FAQ explaining the potential damage of botting.[9] Some bots have made changes to make sure they won't spoil the FreeRice spirit.[10]
It could be argued that using scripts could harm name brand support in the long run. If advertising companies realize that the ads are not being read by humans, they might decide to remove their support. This has yet to be seen.
Awards
Yahoo! Pick of the Year 2007 – Charity Category – Winner[11]
Berkman Award to Freerice.com creator, John Breen. He was recognized with a Berkman Award for creating FreeRice.com on May 16, 2008. At the Harvard University's Berkman Center for Internet & Society’s tenth anniversary gala dinner, recipients of the Berkman Awards were chosen for their outstanding contributions to the Internet’s impact on society over the past decade.
Monthly count
| Month |
Monthly grains of rice donated |
Overall grains of rice donated |
| October 2007 |
537,163,380 |
537,163,380 |
| November 2007 |
4,768,969,790 |
5,306,133,170 |
| December 2007 |
6,948,988,060 |
12,255,121,230 |
| January 2008 |
4,551,581,980 |
16,806,703,210 |
| February 2008 |
3,893,361,180 |
20,700,064,390 |
| March 2008 |
4,109,191,320 |
24,809,255,710 |
| April 2008 |
5,614,647,060 |
30,423,902,770 |
| May 2008 |
4,657,641,260 |
35,081,544,030 |
| June 2008 |
3,043,677,360 |
38,125,221,390 |
| July 2008 |
2,046,077,880 |
40,171,299,270 |
| August 2008 |
1,918,976,960 |
42,090,276,230 |
| September 2008 |
3,149,870,660 |
45,240,146,890 |
| October 2008 |
3,739,408,120 |
48,979,555,010 |
| November 2008 |
3,678,546,760 |
52,658,101,770 |
| December 2008 |
3,539,642,160 |
56,197,743,930 |
| January 2009 |
2,416,239,520 |
58,613,983,450 |
| February 2009 |
1,663,509,530 |
60,277,492,980 |
| March 2009 |
1,830,287,650 |
62,107,780,630 |
| April 2009 |
1,478,963,720 |
63,586,744,350 |
| May 2009 |
1,403,545,670 |
64,990,290,020 |
| June 2009 |
929,906,500 |
65,920,196,520 |
| July 2009 |
652,730,310 |
66,572,926,830 |
| August 2009 |
787,320,460 |
67,360,247,290 |
| September 2009 |
1,310,200,000 |
68,670,447,290 |
| October 2009 |
1,611,699,490 |
70,282,146,780 |
| November 2009 |
1,426,271,040 |
71,708,417,820 |
| December 2009 |
1,262,727,060 |
72,971,144,880 |
| January 2010 |
1,451,006,720 |
74,422,151,600 |
Milestones
- October 7, 2007 – FreeRice launches with 830 grains of rice donated on its first day
- November 10, 2007 – FreeRice breaks the one-day 100,000,000-grain milestone with 122,377,240 donated grains
- November 28, 2007 – With continued sponsor support, FreeRice doubles the number of grains donated for each correct definition from 10 to 20
- December 17, 2007 – FreeRice breaks the one-day 300,000,000-grain milestone with 358,559,540 donated grains
- December 19, 2007 – 10 billion grains donated in total
- January 20, 2008 – 15 billion grains donated in total
- February 25, 2008 – 20 billion grains donated in total
- April 2, 2008 – 25 billion grains donated in total
- April 30, 2008 – 30 billion grains donated in total
- May 30, 2008 – 35 billion grains donated in total
- July 29, 2008 – 40 billion grains donated in total
- September 29, 2008 – 45 billion grains donated in total
- November 11, 2008 – 50 billion grains donated in total
- February, 2009 – 60 billion grains donated in total
- September 2009 - 70 billion grains donated in total
References
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