Text to help Haitian quake relief

With envoys saying that much of the capital, Port-au-Prince, has been leveled and a death toll expected to run into the thousands, it was obvious early on that the catastrophe would require significant relief efforts on behalf of both governments and nonprofits.

The most prominent online campaign to solicit small donations may be on behalf of the American Red Cross, which is encouraging people to text "HAITI" to the short-code 90999. It'll automatically donate $10 to Red Cross relief efforts and charge users' cell phone bills.

Additionally, musician Wyclef Jean, who is a Haitian immigrant and operates an education-focused Haitian activist group called Yele Haiti (and also has well over 1 million Twitter followers), has encouraged people to text "YELE" to the short-code 501501 to automatically donate $5--even though heavy volumes of traffic had already downed Yele's own Web site.

For more, read "Online masses text to offer Haitian quake relief" on CNET News.