The organizers of the Indie+Relief one-day charity sale have been overwhelmed by the response from Mac software developers.
After accepting more than 140 developers in the Wednesday January 20th sale — all proceeds of which will be donated to Haiti — the organizers are now turning down offers to add more companies to the program.
“We expected people would be interested, but the response has been overwhelming and amazing,” said Garret Murray, one of the organizers. “Personally, I thought we’d probably have 20 or so companies. And in under a week we’re already having to stop taking submissions. I’ve always known the Mac community is very supportive, but even this blew me away.”
To contribute, all you have to do is buy some of the Mac or iPhone software listed on the Indie+Relief webpage. All proceeds will be donated to charities working in Haiti, including Doctors Without Borders, Oxfam, the Red Cross, and others.
The sale includes well-known titles like Delicious Library 2, Instapaper Pro, MarsEdit, Moneydance, Things and Tweetie — as well as lesser-known but highly-rated apps such as Gas Cubby and Today.
Hardware makers are also getting involved. Twelve South promised to donate $5 for every BassJump Subwoofer for MacBook ($79.99) and BackPack Shelf for iMac ($29.99) sold directly on twelvesouth.com.
The effort began five days ago when Mac/iPhone software developer Justin Williams suggested on his blog that software publishers should donate a day’s sales to relief efforts. The idea spread quickly and Williams and Garrett soon had dozens of volunteers. They spent the weekend creating a single page listing all the software for sale.
The pair are now calling on everyone to spread the word via Twitter, Facebook, blog posts or by adding Indie+Relief banner to websites and blogs.
“The more awareness there is, the more software will be bought,” said Williams on his blog. “The more software that is bought, the more is donated to charity. I realize we won’t be making nearly as much money as the text messaging campaigns or other telethons, but it is refreshing to know the Mac & iPhone community has the opportunity to at least make a dent in the Haitian relief effort. Thanks for being a part of that.”
I just conducted a quick IM-terview with Murray. Full text after the jump.
CoM: you must be busy.
Garrett Murray: it’s been a little nuts today–mostly just (unfortunately) having to turn down offers to add new products to the page
the weekend was intense, though. building the site, getting all the data in there, etc.
CoM: you’re turning down offers? why?
Garrett Murray: well, we have practical reasons as this point–there are currently over 140 companies listed on the page. the page itself, even compressed, is becoming very large and we want to make sure it loads for people in a reasonable amount of time.
as well, we don’t want the page to be completely overwhelming when people arrive there–we want them to actually look through the list and buy software.
that said, another big reason is just the time it takes to add more content to the page. which would be hard to do if we kept adding every time someone requested to join.
we kept the participation info up for nearly a week and then announced yesterday we had to close it so we could actually get the site finished and up.
that said, we are telling people going forward that they should donate their proceeds if they want to (and we’re encouraging it). keep in mind that people don’t have to buy from the indie+relief site directly–these companies have pledged all of their proceeds for 01/20, regardless of the origin.
CoM: it’s a good problem to have — you surprised about the response? how do you feel about it?
Garrett Murray: we expected people would be interested, but the response has been overwhelming and amazing. personally, i thought we’d probably have 20 or so companies. and in under a week we’re already having to stop taking submissions. i’ve always known the mac community is very supportive, but even this blew me away.
and it feels fantastic. with this many companies, we have a chance to raise a lot of money. i really hope we do.
we’ve also learned a lot about how to do this again in the future, so the next time we do an indie+relief event we’ll be more prepared to handle the overwhelming response.
CoM: so was it justin who got the ball rolling? how did you get involved?
Garrett Murray: justin posted to twitter that he was thinking about donating a day’s proceeds from his mac software to haiti. i had been thinking something similar and when i saw his tweet we started talking about trying to get more companies and developers involved. he started collecting information and i started designing and building the site.
CoM: great — good for you guys. anyone else gone above and beyond?
Garrett Murray: michael simmons from cultured code helped us proof the site once we had all the companies in. and there are a lot of people who have been posting about the event on their sites today, which is great.
CoM: well best of luck. will you tell me afterwards how it went?
Garrett Murray: definitely. we’re hoping to collect as much sales info as we can (in generic number terms) so we can have a general idea of how much was donated.
CoM: i’ll be buying some software also. best of luck
Garrett Murray: thanks. later!
