the history of the game and website :
The website went live on October 7, 2007 with 830 grains of rice donated on its first day. The second word in its name was originally capitalized as "FreeRice."
On 20 November 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 phenomenally successful web-based vocab game, FreeRice."
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.
In March 2009 the FreeRice website was donated to the UN World Food Programme.
The site is the brainchild of computer programmer John Breen, who originally designed it to help his teenage sons prepare for their college entrance exams.Breen realised the potential the site had to help others and he donated it to the World Food Programme (WFP).
It became so popular that just within a month of its launch it helped raised enough rice to feed over 50,000 people for a day, and now it has raised enough to feed more than four million people for a day.
The rice is provided by the WFP and paid for by advertisers.
Every time a person gets a correct answer the advertisement running at the bottom of the site changes and the advertiser pays for ten grains of rice.
The game has gained so much interest that it attracts 40,000 players everyday, and now the site is aiming to integrate with Facebook and Twitter.
Integrating the site with Facebook and Twitter is something hardcore players have been requesting for a long time, said Nancy Roman, director of communication for the World Food Programme.
"Freerice is making internet history," the BBC quoted Roman as saying.
"It's a stellar example of how a fun and simple idea can harness the Internet's potential to contribute to the world's most pressing global issue - hunger," she stated.
A mobile phone app will also be available for iPhone and iPad users, and the site is extending its challenges so that users can also test their knowledge of other subjects, such as art, geography, chemistry and maths.
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