As MTV reports tonight Justin Timberlake, Coldplay, Alicia Keys, Bruce Springsteen, Wyclef Jean, Bono, The Edge and Jay-Z will lead the all-star lineup of performers for Friday night’s “Hope for Haiti Now: A Global Benefit for Earthquake Relief” telethon.
“..The two-hour program will air commercial-free across ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX, CNN, BET, the CW, HBO, MTV, VH1 and CMT on Friday at 8 p.m. ET/PT. The special will also air on PBS, TNT, Showtime, Comedy Central, Bravo, E! Entertainment Network, National Geographic Channel, Oxygen, G4, Centric, Current TV, Fuse, MLB Network, Epix, Palladia, SoapNet, Style, Discovery Health and Planet Green, as well as Canada’s CTV, CBC Television, Global Television and MuchMusic. It will also air internationally on BET International, CNN International, National Geographic and MTV Networks International, available in 640 million homes worldwide. “Hope for Haiti” will be the first U.S.-based telethon airing on MTV in China. .”
Looking at the info from MTV’s report and knowing that “Facebook and Twitter are the official social media partners who will help to drive donations and tune-in to the telethon,” it’s no surprise that this is going to be a huge event across multiple networks, musical genres and new media platforms. And hopefully it will help bring aide to those devastaded by the Haiti Earthquake.
Avatar Webcast Module Used to Help Haiti Now
Mashable also reports interesting news about the tonight’s events saying that “the live chats will be managed Gigya — the same company that did the MTV/Facebook/LG Avatarwebcast with James Cameron — will accompany the MTV, VH1 and CBS webcasts.”
It’ll also be interesting to see how Gigya’s approach to social donations turns out tonight. Here’s what Mashable says about Gigya plan tonight.
Gigya told us that MTV Networks is working with them again to recreate the “lean forward” level of participation it achieved with the Avatar web-cast. The live chat makes the donating experience public; folks in the chat will probably encourage one another to donate, and people will be more likely to donate if they know they can impress their friends. Gigya has found that these webcast chats drive more traffic and more word-of-mouth promotion, which will in turn lead to a greater volume of donations.
This is certainly some kind of historical moment where live music, social media and humanitarian efforts are all combining into one force for good.
I’m excited and I’ll be tuning in too see how it goes.
How ’bout you?
What are your thoughts on the Hope for Haiti Now Telethon?