Last week's letter in The Guardian Online concerning charitycards.co.uk's use of Flash technology on its Web site has spawned a reply on the supplement's letters page. Gordon Stevenson retorted that "the original web designer of charitycards was correct to use Flash, since 69.78% of all web browsers now have Flash player installed."
UK charities are developing a range of database-driven sites, according to Jason Potts, head of new media at Burnett Associates, in this month's Professional Fundraising magazine.
Oxfam GB has launched itself as a free Internet Service Provider and stands to raise funds from users' local dial-up telephone calls. Teaming up with Web portal and media company Yahoo!
IT magazine The Register claims that Microsoft "deliberately set out to use charitable contributions to bolster its image in February this year, according to a leaked internal Microsoft email we have seen."
Charities Aid Foundation (CAF) has relaunched Charity Net Access, the specialised service for charities, with Internet Service Provider Poptel. Charity NetAccess was originally launched in December 1997 with K-web "to provide a complete package for access to the Internet tailored exclusively to the needs of charities."
There is such a thing as a free launch. The latest free charity Internet Service Provider is 4u2give.
A small proportion of the local call telephone fees, normally kept by the ISP as profit, will be donated to charity. 4u2give quotes a secondary school with 2000 pupils that could earn between £2000 and £5000 per year using their service.
The British Library has become the latest non-profit organisation to offer free Internet access by becoming an Internet Service Provider. Due to launch on Monday, British Library Net will offer access to the library's online catalogue which lists over nine million titles.
