Last year, Facebook users had a very original way of donating money to L-Istrina through an application ( http://apps.facebook.com/l-istrina ) developed specifically for the event.

During the 13 hour TV show marathon for charity, the Facebook donation application was installed by over 4,000 users, with 826 donors contributing €13,250 to the €2.3M global sum collected in aid of The Malta Community Chest Fund.

The application was developed by Seasus Ltd, a local innovator in internet technologies, as part of our corporate social responsibility activities. The company staff donated time from their Christmas holidays to develop this unique Facebook application for L-Istrina that enabled all members to make their donation online with their debit or credit cards in a secure environment.

This one-of-a-kind application is linked to L-Istrina’s official Facebook page which to date boasts over 13,000 members thanks to a young gentleman, Glen Chircop Galea, who had founded this page over a year ago with enthusiasm and dedication towards this fundraising activity.

We are thrilled with the feedback received. Being the biggest charity event of the year locally, word spread very quickly around Facebook about this innovative application and we are very satisfied that our technology contributed towards the record breaking amount collected. This achievement demonstrates the enormous potential of social networks, which can truly involve users in a common cause.

Over the last couple of years we have pioneered in the field of social media with the integration of applications with Facebook, Twitter and other social networks such diverse fields as online gaming, real estate and travel with excellent results. It is promising to see that social media can also play an important part towards charitable causes.

Mr Bone is the managing director of Seasus Limited.