Google One Today Hands-On
Google has been finding new ways to use its technological power for the greater good. Its newest effort arrives to the Google Play store as “One Today,” an app that lets you donate to charities in a new and innovative way. One Today is a beautiful application full of Google design language, beautiful pictures, and plenty of do-goodedness. One Today is currently invite only however you can still download the application and show your interest.
The first time you open the application you are greeted by instructions on how One Today works. You are then immediately taken to the landing page which is usually the charity that is seeing the most action. When I first opened the application, the charity was for Em”powering” the Def in Sierra Leone – a charity for giving solar power to deaf schools. You have two options to make a difference here; you can either donate $1 to the charity, or match contributions meaning if someone donated $1, I would match that contribution – making the total donation $2.
When you swipe to the right, you are shown a menu page where you can track your impact, pay your balance, and view your profile. I would imagine as you make more donations, your impact grows giving your profile greater meaning. Looking at your impact isn’t just a number of how much you donated – but it also tells you what your donation does. At the time of using the application, $93 were donated to Em”powering” the Def in Sierra Leone which totaled in over three days of solar power. I found myself checking back often to see how the charity was doing.
Overall I believe One Today will be a successful project from Google. Being a technology geek, there was definitely a feeling of satisfaction when using my phone for good. The only real disappointing feature about One Today was that it would not let me donate to more than one charity per day. I hope that restriction is soon lifted because I found myself wanting to get involved with more charities. Google One Today is available in the Google Play Store now.