Change The World with Google One Today!

I've always wanted to get involved with a charity, but with SO many out there (over 1.5 million in the U.S. alone), where do you even start? And how do you know which ones are legit? Often this just leads me to me giving up. Well Google is about to change all that with their newest app Google One Today.

One Today makes donating to charities and projects around the world an effortless process and it can be done right from your smartphone. With the touch of a button, you can donate $1 to a great cause.  The app is currently only available to Android users and since it's still in beta, you need to receive an invite to get started which you sign up for HERE

Once you've downloaded the app, you'll be presented with a cause or charity to donate to with info on how many people have donated and how much has been earned so far.

Scrolling down presents you with more detail about the cause. You'll get more information about what exactly your money is going towards and how it will help.

Scrolling even further down will show you how much has been donated so far and what that money translates to. You'll also see a list of recent givers, and yes that means if you choose to donate, others will be able to see. I believe it pulls your name from your Google+ account.

Another awesome feature of the app is if you're passionate about a particular cause, you can share it with your friends and even offer to match their donations. You can also choose to match donations with everyone who donates that day, but that may get a little rough on the bank account once the app becomes more public. 

Within the app, you can keep track of all the causes you've donated to and how much money was raised. As you can see in the screenshot below, some generous individual offered to match everyone's donation to MANA Nutrition, so my $1 turned into $2. 

You're limited to $1 donations, which I think is what makes this even more appealing. $1 doesn't get you much in your day-to-day, but to those in need, it buys a lot. If you would like to donate more than that, then you'll have to challenge your friends to donate as well and offer to match the donations. All donations are paid through your Google Wallet account and you don't actually pay the money immediately. You can wait several days and donate to several charities and then pay all at once. You will get friendly reminders about settling your balance if you take too long though, and if you wait too long, certain features of the app will be locked out and you'll be unable to continue donating until your balance is paid up. 

Currently, you are not able to search for a specific cause to support and are limited to what's presented to you that day. But an interesting feature is that as you donate, One Today will learn what projects interest you and tailor it's suggestions accordingly. 

Give it a try! It's only a dollar and it's awesome seeing what exactly your $1 is going towards and how it's going to help. It's better than having sad puppies and Sarah McLachlan music thrown at you. 

Redbox Instant: Because You'll Instantly Want Your Money Back

  Redbox, with the help of Netflix, has successfully made video rental places such as Blockbuster, Hollywood Video, etc. obsolete. Gone are the days of walking aimlessly around a video store, staring at hundreds of box covers, finally settling on a movie that you want to see only to discover that it's out of stock. And now Redbox is aiming to do the same to Netflix.

  Now all we have to do is turn on our favorite gaming console, smart TV, Blu-Ray player, smartphone or run down to one of thousands of Redbox kiosks to pick up a movie for the night. It's convenient, easier, and the titles are always in stock. How could it get much better? What if you didn't have to put pants on so you can go to a Redbox kiosk? Instead you could just rent something that's available at the kiosk immediately from the comfort of your own home while in your underwear. "Well, that sounds totally rad! Sign me up!" Well slow down, Champ and clean the Cheeto's dust of your fingers, because unfortunately, it just ain't that easy...yet.

  At first glance, Redbox Instant sounds great. For $8 a month, you get access to unlimited video streaming and 4 credits to be used at the kiosk. It's cheaper than Netflix and you still get the option of picking up a New Release DVD at any Redbox location, instead of waiting for it to come in the mail. Netflix has JUST become worthless, Right?! Well not quite..

UNLIMITED STREAMING

  We're all familiar with how the Redbox kiosk works, so let's jump straight into Netflix's newest competition, Redbox Instant. Redbox Instant works just the same as Netflix. You get thousands of movies that can be streamed at any time. There's even an app for Android and iOS, with an app for Xbox coming in the near future.

  But as we all know, a streaming service will only be successful if it has a good selection of titles to watch, and here is Redbox Instant is behind. Now I don't want to judge them too harshly on this quite yet, as all streaming services are going to start off with a limited selection and then grow with time. Redbox Instant has actually grown quite a bit since I joined the beta close to a month ago, but it still has a ways to go to catch up to Netflix and currently, the streaming titles are limited to Movies with no TV Shows available as of yet. This may change in the future, but Redbox has not mentioned if that's coming any time soon.

As far as the quality of the streaming, well we'll talk about that later. Here's a little preview: it's terrible.


RENTING VIA STREAMING

  Here is where I thought Redbox was going to steal the show. "$1 movie rentals without having to leave the house?! Goodbye Netflix!" Oh if only it were that easy.

  Unfortunately, the rentals aren't that cheap. No $1 rentals here. Instead, the same movie that I could rent at a Redbox kiosk for $1 is closer to $5 or $6, as you can see in the screenshot below.

  Of course you get the convenience of not having to leave the house, but a $5 difference is pretty substantial and it puts them at the same price as other popular streaming services such as Amazon. Something that could set them apart is if you could use one of your four free rental credits per month towards a streaming rental, even if it only gave you a couple of dollars off, but as of yet, that's not an option.

APP QUALITY

  So how well does the app work? Let me describe it in one word: BLECH! This app is horrendous. It's slow, crashes often, and movies will stop in the middle and buffer endlessly even while on a high speed wifi connection. And when the movie is streaming, the quality is terrible. It's like trying to watch Avatar on your Atari 2600. The regular Redbox app for reserving movies is built so much better. Instead of just adding a streaming tab to the regular app, they went and built a buggy, ugly mess.

  And for all you rooted Android users out there, sorry, this app just won't work. I have a strong feeling that Verizon has something to do with this as they have a strong hate for rooted phones and they helped build this app.

CONCLUSION

  SAVE YOUR MONEY! Put that $8 towards renting 8 DVD's at a Redbox kiosk. The selection is terrible, rentals are the same price as everyone else, the app is absolutely awful, and streaming quality is nonexistent.

Stick to using Redbox for new release rentals at the kiosk and get your streaming video elsewhere. Redbox will not be dethroning Netflix as the king of streaming anytime soon.

  Of course, Redbox Instant is still in beta and may have many improvements coming before it's publicly released. But the service should've been a lot further along before even releasing it to a private beta. There is way too much competition for Redbox to release such a broken service.

ALTERNATIVES

Amazon- My personal favorite in the on demand renting department- With an Amazon Prime membership, you get access to thousands of TV Shows and Movies. Amazon is quickly rivaling Netflix and it's actually a cheaper alternative. Netflix is $96/year or $8/month, while Prime is $79/year which has even more value if you're a frequent Amazon shopper such as myself, including free two-day shipping or $4 overnight and free book rentals if you own a Kindle device. Streaming quality is great and Amazon tends to throw free $5 video credits in with many purchases, so you build up a bunch of free rentals quite quickly. The only downside is that there currently isn't an Amazon streaming app available for on the go outside of owning a Kindle Fire. But it is available on game consoles and Blu-Ray players.

Netflix- The grandad and current king of streaming. With the biggest selection of movie titles and TV shows, Netflix is the go to for all streaming needs. Also, Netflix has begun producing their own TV Shows only available on their service such as House of Cards (Excellent show) and they have an exclusive deal with the new Arrested Development episodes. Netflix has fantastic HD streaming quality and is available on almost any device that runs on batteries. It's only downside is not having the options to pay to rent a newer release title.