Interesting pie charts here of how different countries have provided different aid amounts:

http://blogs.cgdev.org/globaldevelopment/2010/01/haiti-aid-facts.php

Eg Canada seem to have provided the most, per capita of the donor country.

Facebook and Twitter were by far the biggest referrers to their site after Google and BBC.”

So social networking sites didn’t refer the most people. Google and the BBC did a better job.

“Although the TV ads was not broadcast until Friday evening, £8m was raised online following the first DEC announcement on Twitter at 7.41pm on Wednesday.”

The earthquake occurred on Tuesday evening (GMT) and was covered in UK news broadcasts that day and on Wednesday. As is standard practice, the BBC mentioned the DEC as a donor target as soon as the potential scale became understood. That’s why Google provided so many referrals.

I’m not arguing that social networking sites do not contribute to awareness raising. But TV and radio news reports, photos in the national papers, opened people’s wallets. It was the old media wot dunnit, and social networking made it a bit easier to donate. In the old days, we used to pass a tin around at work — not exclusively to raise money, but to increase consciousness.