The Unicef Tap Project

Ask yourself: can you leave your cell phone alone for ten whole minutes? No touching, no checking the time and no texting.

If you can do this, UNICEF will reward your time by providing clean water to a child for one day.

Sounds day right? For some of us this is harder than you think. The task is quite simple and the reward is clearly worth the time. For UNICEF, this offer tries to show us just how silly our cell phone addiction really is.

I won't lie, running this program is a battery killer. Users start the timer in a browser and can't move the phone until they reach their desired time. However, what's five percent of your battery for a child in need?

Online the numbers are actually rather impressive: 4.5 years worth of clean water have been donated, at this exact second 872 people are taking the challenge, California has the top donations and the record time by one person is over 17,000 minutes of hands-off time.

When it comes down to it, the risk is zero and the reward means a lot. Even if you set the timer while in the middle of class, you donate five days worth of water.

How easy is that? How good does it make UNICEF look — pretty damn good in my opinion.

For a generation glued to our phones, this is the perfect way to create awareness and involvement.

So what am I doing now? Donating two days worth of water, just as I write this. Get out there.

Newsjacking at the Oscars

From getting pizzas delivered to taking a photo leading to the most popular Tweet ever, Ellen DeGeneres' stint as host of the Oscars was arguably the most successful yet.

Ellen's famous Tweet was later revealed to be a stunt to promote Samsung phones, but at the time, her involvement was brilliant.

She gathered several A-list celebs and had Bradley Cooper snap the shot.  The words accompanying her Tweet read: "If only Bradley Cooper's arms were longer."

Her single Tweet — rehearsed or not — gathered over 3.3 million retweets and about 1.9 million favorites, beating the pants off Obama's "Four more years" Tweet which held the previous record.  The overflow of action actually crashed Twitter for nearly an hour, which she proudly announced during the Oscars.

Since her appearance, there have been countless parody photos, including a Simpson's version that has also gained Twitter stardom.

In addition, Ellen ordered pizza on-air.  After asking for money, she ordered three pizzas — as if that was enough for all her guests, but then again, they're all on diets right?  She enlisted Brad Pitt to hand out slices, causing another trend of Tweets, posts, and various postings all over social media.

Conclusion: Ellen wins the Oscars all by herself.  There is no doubt in my mind that the ratings will reflect her popularity and she will be invited back next year — hopefully with a new set of ridiculous stunts.