Facebook, Twitter rally to help Haiti victims

Calls for donations are spreading through Facebook and Twitter as people ask friends and strangers to help the victims of Haiti's earthquake.

On Twitter, "Yele" was the most popular topic Wednesday afternoon (US time), as people tweeted and retweeted messages to donate US$5 to singer Wyclef Jean's Yele Haiti Foundation. They could do this by sending the text message "Yele" to the number 501501.

To donate US$10 to the Red Cross - the second most popular topic on Twitter - cell phone users can text the word "Haiti" to 90999.

On Facebook, Juliette Joseph asked her 316 friends - many of whom recently posted the colour of their bra as their status message to raise cancer awareness - to donate by texting.

"I found out about it this morning when I was watching Channel 11 news," said Joseph, 26, who works as a project manager for an education company and lives in New Jersey.

"I did it right away and got a response text saying, 'Yes, your donation was made. Here is your confirmation.'"

She said she's gotten four text messages from friends saying that they are donating, along with six Facebook messages. She also saw that seven or eight of her friends have reposted the call for donations.

"I would have donated anyway, but I probably would have let it sit there for a while," she said. "This was so easy, because everybody is text messaging."

- AP