Yesterday, I launched a small tongue-in-cheek website called Tweets for Balls.
The concept is relatively simple – people can donate money towards testicular cancer research by sending a message on Twitter. Online donations are nothing new and, thanks to services like Just Giving and Plumfund, have become a familiar method for people to raise money for charity.
Last year, I discovered a campaign called Tweets for Boobs which got me thinking about a male equivalent. I registered the necessary domain and Twitter account and planned to put something together but, due to other looming projects, it fell by the wayside.
This Summer, I discovered a neat little hack by Simon Painter called Giv2.it. It’s a small app that allows Twitter users to make micro-donations by tweeting a message with the #giv2 hashtag, a recipient Twitter username and the amount. It then sends a link back to the user to complete payment on Just Giving.
With the fundamental process established, I teamed up with the talented web designer Sam Hardacre to create the campaign website. I wanted to introduce some character into the campaign so came up with the idea of the bird looking down his pants. My illustration skills are pathetic compared to Sam so I sent him my initial doodle for refinement.
The website was only intended to be a simple promotional page with instructions and some background. After creating the initial wireframe and content, Sam worked on some colour combinations and styles to add some life and ended up with the design you see today. We’re particularly fond of the progress indicator which will move across the screen as donations are made. Make sure you check the design out on your mobile too – it’s responsive (as all sites should be nowadays).
We also drafted in some help from Anthony Killeen to integrate his Twitter aggregator which shows recent tweets mentioning the campaign plus any donations made via Twitter.
There are number of other features and updates we have planned for the coming weeks as well such as tighter integration with Giv2.it and a grid of contributor’s photos.
For now, we’re just keen to raise as much money as possible for testicular cancer research. Please send your donations to Tweets for Balls which will go directly to the Everyman charity. All contributions are welcome – even £1 a will do.