Freerice

Freerice is an ad-supported, free-to-play website and mobile application that allows players to donate rice to families in need by playing a multiple-choice quiz game. For every question the user answers correctly, one grain of rice is donated via the United Nation's World Food Programme. The available categories include Global Goals: Using Facts to Fuel Action, English, Geography, Humanities, Language Learning, Math, and Science. The categories encompass a total of 24 diverse subjects that can be played on up to five difficulty levels, depending on the subject. A user's total score is displayed as a mound of rice and number of grains earned.

Freerice
Type of site
Click-to-donate site
HeadquartersRome, Italy
OwnerWorld Food Programme
Created byJohn Breen
URLfreerice.com
CommercialYes
LaunchedOctober 7, 2007 (2007-10-07)
Current statusActive

History

The website went live on October 7, 2007, with 830 grains of rice donated on its first day. The site was created by John Breen, a computer programmer, to help his son study for the SAT exam.[1] The second word in its name was originally capitalized as "FreeRice". On November 20, 2007, the WFP launched a campaign to "feed a child for Thanksgiving", encouraging internet users "to take time out from traditionally the busiest online shopping period of the year and help the hungry" by playing the game.[2] For a brief while, the amount of rice donated per correct answer was increased to 20 grains, though this was reduced to 10 grains of rice per answer within a few months. Since July 30, 2020, it has been temporarily reduced to 5 grains due to a collapse in the advertising market from the COVID-19 pandemic.[3]

In March 2009, Breen donated the FreeRice website to the World Food Programme.[1]

Freerice 2.0 launch

In September 2010, the UN World Food Programme launched a new version of the game with social networking, groups, rankings and achievements. As part of the launch, the site dropped the second capitalization in its name, going from "FreeRice" to "Freerice".

Freerice Beta Launch

In August 2018, the UN World Food Programme launched a newer, more improved version of the game on a new website. The beta has a new interface and is mobile-friendly. Apps for iOS and Android have also been released with this version of the website.

Versions in other languages

In 2011, Freerice launched new language versions of the website in Spanish, French, Italian, Chinese and Korean, allowing users to play the popular game across a number of subjects in their own language for the first time. Freerice China is currently offline, as the World Food Programme has ended its contract with the partner responsible for building and maintaining it.

Leaderboards

Freerice users can see the total rice they donated, as well as their current ranking on the site. The website also allows creating groups, of which players can join using a group code. The group score is determined by the total rice donated by the group members while they are a part of the group. The website publicly displays two leaderboards of the top 50 individuals and top 50 groups, along with the scores of each.

Effectiveness

In its first ten 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 Nations' World Food Program stated that this amount could feed 50,000 people for one day,[4] since it takes 400 grams or about 19,200 grains of rice to feed one adult for a day.[5] Using this calculation, enough rice was donated in 2008 to feed over 6,000 people daily for each day of that year.[6] Since its inception, as of April 3, 2013, Freerice players had earned sufficient rice for over 10 million meals, assuming 2 meals per day.

Awards
  • Digital Communications Award 2011 – Best Corporate Game
  • TIME Magazine – 50 Best Websites 2011
  • 15th Annual Webby Awards – Honoree
  • 2010 Parent's Choice Awards – Online Learning
  • TIME Magazine – 50 Best Websites 2008
  • Yahoo! Pick of the Year 2007 – Charity Category – Winner[7]
  • Berkman Award to Freerice.com creator, John Breen. He was recognized with a Berkman Award on May 16, 2008, for creating Freerice. 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 10 years.

Monthly count
Average number of adults fed per day by daily average of each month.

2014

2014
MonthMonthly grains of rice donatedOverall grains of rice donated
January 2014349,662,210101,415,929,916[note 1]
February 2014241,367,520101,657,297,436
March 2014219,342,840101,876,640,276
April 2014216,473,200102,093,113,476
May 2014191,988,980102,285,102,456
June 2014252,428,280102,537,530,736
July 2014145,472,000102,683,002,736
August 2014136,309,740102,819,312,476
September 2014138,291,660[10]102,957,604,136
October 2014123,305,060+[10]103,080,909,196+
November—December 2014[11]

2016

2016
MonthMonthly grains of rice donatedOverall grains of rice donated
January 2016264,980,280
February 2016525,172,070
March 2016347,065,700
April 2016199,722,090
May 2016860,194,410
June 2016742,793,630
July 2016425,293,700
August 2016130,513,090
September 2016132,992,450
October 2016196,426,640
November 2016157,675,040
December 2016155,588,110

2017

2017
MonthMonthly grains of rice donatedOverall grains of rice donated
January 2017554,882,920
February 2017246,143,340
March 2017149,909,530
April 2017132,419,590
May 2017161,808,240
June 2017115,069,080
July 2017105,594,800
August 2017121,419,950
September 2017158,348,360
October 2017174,342,570
November 2017173,410,120
December 2017-4,124,719,596

2018

2018
MonthMonthly grains of rice donatedOverall grains of rice donated
January 2018319,171,080
February 2018149,158,610
March 2018175,011,940
April 2018137,136,210
May 2018144,932,900
June 2018107,808,870
July 2018106,242,860
August 201891,461,150
September 201877,961,650
October 201888,640,370
November 201889,331,160
December 201899,520,060

2019

2019
MonthMonthly grains of rice donatedOverall grains of rice donated
January 2019112,049,330
February 201993,661,930
March 201995,361,250
April 201991,127,060
May 201986,167,510
June 2019119,787,540
July 2019105,088,250
August 201999,552,720
September 2019264,443,080
October 2019391,158,720
November 2019399,069,600
December 2019404,083,700

2020

2020
MonthMonthly grains of rice donatedOverall grains of rice donated
January 2020379,633,750
February 2020346,568,940
March 2020341,555,530
April 2020340,340,410
May 2020328,464,330
June 2020411,691,330
July 2020501,288,130
August 2020196,828,080
September 2020184,674,260
October 2020203,009,240
November 2020220,664,415
December 2020222,252,615

2021

2021
MonthMonthly grains of rice donatedOverall grains of rice donated
January 2021143,479,226

Total All Dates (as of August 2014): 102,819,312,476[note 1] [12]

Modified data as of January 31, 2021: 101,446,468,448.[13]

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
  • April 2, 2008 – 25 billion grains donated in total
  • November 11, 2008 – 50 billion grains donated in total
  • September 2010 – A new version of the game (Freerice 2.0) was launched with social networking and group functionality
  • January 2011 – 85 billion grains donated in total
  • June 2011 – A Spanish version is launched
  • September 2011 – A French version and Italian version are launched
  • October 2011 – A Chinese version is launched
  • December 2011 – A Korean version is launched
  • January 2012 – Over 94 billion grains donated in total and over 1 million registered players
  • February 2012 – The first official World Freerice Week was held, and two new subjects launched (World Landmarks and Human Anatomy), and soon thereafter deletes millions of grains earned by top participants confused with bots
  • April 2012 – Launched an SAT subject
  • August 2013 – Reached 100 billion grains of rice[note 1]
  • February 2015 – 300 billion grains donated in total
  • August 2018 – Freerice launches their beta website with a fresh new look
  • February 2019 – Freerice releases their first rice-raising app on Google Play
  • May 2019 – Freerice announces on Facebook they will be shutting down Freerice 2.0 in favor of their beta version
  • July 2019 – Freerice releases beta iOS app in the App Store
  • August 29, 2019 – Freerice 2.0 shuts down and Freerice Beta takes over

References
  1. Ceceri, Kathy (2010-03-04). "Free Rice Expands Your Word Power and Feeds the Hungry".
  2. "Feed a child for Thanksgiving". Archived from the original on 2007-11-25.
  3. "Freerice". freerice.com. Retrieved 2020-08-04.
  4. "Web game provides rice for hungry". BBC News. 2007-11-10.
  5. http://www.slideshare.net/GreenBeingNancy/400-grams-of-rice
  6. "Total Donations By Date". Archived from the original on 2008-03-26. Retrieved 2008-03-28.
  7. Find of the Year 2007, Category Charity (accessed on February 7, 2008).
  8. https://web.archive.org/web/20101207184318/http://www.freerice.com/frmisc/totals
  10. - Freerice totals - 2014 Oct 31 Only partial totals are available for October 31, but about as close as we're going to get for the full month as we currently have.
  11. The full year totals for Freerice.com have been glitched since at least Jan 2015 and now display negative numbers. Without these totals we cannot calculate overall grains donated.
  12. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2013-09-28. Retrieved 2013-09-28.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  13. "Totals | Freerice.com". freerice.com. Archived from the original on 2013-09-28. Retrieved 2016-06-25.

Glitch notes
  1. Freerice's totals seem to have glitched around September 2013. Comparing webarchive.org shots from May and Sept of 2013, the 2010 totals curiously drop from ~13 billion to 9 bil grains; also, closed months in 2013 suddenly increase as well (for example, January 2013 went from 274 mil to 786 mil). Finding it unlikely that billions of grains can be recalled nearly 3 years after they were eaten, I calculate the values here from previous records instead. Recalling how 2010 was the year Free Rice ("1.0") transitioned to Freerice 2.0, the "new" 2010 total seems strangely similar to amounts my records attribute to the original Free Rice. In other words, the new count resembles the result of subtracting 2.0 grains from the old 2010 count. While this result came out 19 mil grains higher than recorded for 1.0, that discrepancy may be explained by how the transition on the 7th of October had prevented this Wikipedian from recording "1.0" grains from the first 6 days of that month since initial 2.0 total page seemed to exclude them. (I imagine perhaps Freerice saw that the totals were less than expected but did not know they were missing from 2010, and so fudged the prior months of 2013 to make up for the missing grains?) -CodeHydro
  2. web.archive.org - Freerice totals - 2013 Sept 28
  3. web.archive.org - Freerice totals - 2013 May 29

Freerice glitched in late December 2015, and the yearly total became a negative number, thus subtracting the year's totals from the aggregate total. The problem has reappeared in 2015 and 2016, so the issue appear to be with 32-bit signed binary integers counting the grains. This explains why the displayed total is so much lower than the true total.

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