This is a late-breaking story covered exclusively on the Do Gooder Daily: Jack Johnson snagged his popular song, “Better Together,” from none other than Daily Challenge’s creative director, Verne Ho! Please do not doubt the validity of this claim, here’s the proof:

Just kidding! Imitation is the greatest form of flattery, isn’t it? And obviously Mr. Johnson has impressed Verne. Actually, we all love Jack Johnson here at Daily Challenge. His music lifts our spirits and keeps our mojo’s going even after we reach exhaustion.

So thank you for creating beautiful music and sharing it, Jack Johnson! And Verne, you really need to bring your guitar to work…

Do you hear that? It’s the sound of Do Gooders around the world uniting to Do One Good, Daily! Every week, dozens of socially conscious people have been joining Daily Challenge. Welcome. Some of you have signed up because a friend sent you (thank you for spreading the word, Do Gooders!), while others joined after hearing about Daily Challenge on the radio.

Well, for all you Do Gooders who missed our President, Darius Bashar, speaking to several radio show hosts about Daily Challenge, here they are for your audio pleasure:

The Ben Mercer Show on CFRB

Holder Tonight on CFRB

Fresh Air on CBC

Did you find Daily Challenge through one of these programs? Either way, we’d love to hear how you found Daily Challenge; please tell us in the comment section below!

We’re very excited to announce that Daily Challenge was featured on the homepage of www.csrwire.com. That was yesterday, Monday January 19, so if you click on the link today, you’ll find their new `pick’ is the new President of the United States of America, Barack Obama. Good thing we took a screen shot to prove it!

The Corporate Social Responsibility Newswire is “the leading source of corporate social responsibility and sustainability news, reports and information.” They are on our side, taking an interest in making the world a better place in their own way, through communicating how companies and agencies are doing good.

They define CSR as: “the integration of business operations and values, whereby the interests of all stakeholders including investors, customers, employees, the community and the environment are reflected in the company’s policies and actions.”

Daily Challenge is extremely proud to be a CSRwire.com pick of the day - especially when succeeded by President Obama! What an honour!

Isn’t great when you hear celebrities do good? Maybe it’s because everyone on Daily Challenge can relate to a desire to make the world a better place. That’s why we’re happy to announce 5 new celebrity members to the Daily Challenge community! Please meet:

The Midway State

Known for their special blend of rock, piano and soulful music, The Midway State is an up-and-coming Toronto band who wants to play to the beat of the Do Gooding drum. Lucky us, we get four for the price of one! Nathan Ferraro (lead vocalist & piano), Daenen Bramberger (drums), Michael Wise (guitar), and Mike Kirsh (bass) have all joined Daily Challenge as The Midway State.

They’ve toured all over Canada and the U.S., opening for acts such as Avril Lavigne, Theory of a Deadman, MIKA, 54-40, Shiny Toy Guns, Evanescence, Rocco DeLuca, Collective Soul and Lifehouse. Among the positive music and concert reviews, one critic observed that The Midway State puts so much of themselves into each creation, their songs sound “anthemic in nature”.

To get to know these new Do Gooders better, check out their their Daily Challenge profile for links to videos, music, bios, events and news.

Amber MacArthur a.k.a “Amber Mac”

Recently voted Canada’s “Most Influential Woman in Social Media,” we are very pleased to welcome television and netcasting personality, Amber Mac!

You may recognize Amber from her video podcast, commandN.tv, or maybe you’ve seen her on G4techTV Canada’s Torrent or Gadgets and Gizmos. Amber has worked for Citytv’s CityNews and is now CTV-owned CP24 as New Media Specialist.

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It’s been a little over a month since the dev team has reported on any new releases, but in reality we’ve been rolling out a handful of small changes over the course of the last 30 days (we’re ninjas like that). Have you noticed the newly-designed profile pages? Comment count on challenges? Smoother comment-posting?

Today, we’re adding to that list a handful of exciting updates that we think will change the way you interact with the site. Introducing Most Active Challenges and Open Profiles!

Most Active Challenges

After analyzing usage patterns, feedback and community preferences, we are introducing a new way to organize challenges in the community. The brand new Most Active tab uses a custom-crafted algorithm to display the most active challenges at a specific moment in time. We’ve defined a challenge’s activeness as a factor of user interaction as well as time. This is all in an effort to find the most natural and relevant way to let you see the challenges you’d most likely be interested in.

Keep an eye on the Most Active tab in the coming days and let us know what you think!

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You and I are doing our part to do good for the world (every day on Daily Challenge!), but what are companies up to? They are every bit as responsible for caring for others and the environment as we are. Actually, since companies produce so much waste, and considering we pay for their products and services, it can be argued that they need to be even more aware of the effects from their choices than the average person.

This post is a short list of companies doing good. They have recognized the negative impact of their past actions and taken responsibility, invested money to change their business methods, to improve the welfare of the entire planet:

Coke’s Green Energy Makeover: Part of their “Sustainable Well-Being” Campaign launched last year, Coca-Cola has replaced over 4,000 lights with a high-intensity fluorescent system in 24 of their California locations. That means an energy savings of 5.6 million kilowatt-hours annually! Continue Reading

For those of you who haven’t heard yet, Dr. Deepak Chopra joined Daily Challenge last month! Just yesterday, he challenged the community to, “Take the vow of nonviolence in your thoughts, speech and actions. Visit http://www.itakethevow.com and get counted in this global movement.”

The results are in: 32 Do Gooders accepted the challenge and 11 people completed it (so far). The community seemed to be pretty excited about Dr. Chopra’s challenge, and to prove it, here are the posted comments:

Staci J. Shelton
Posted January 12, 2009 5:59 am

What a beautiful way to start the new year. Being truly non-violent to everyone, even in our thoughts and speech. So often we think of violence as physical, but we kill people (even ourselves and our futures) with our thoughts and words.

Thank You Deepak!

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There’s more to The Goodest Story Ever Contest than making others feel good by your act of kindness and then sharing your heartfelt holiday stories with the world. It’s more than the competition and the chance to win awesome prizes, like a trip for 2 to Cancun, a flip digital camcorder and $100 Starbucks gift card. It’s also a great opportunity to support an initiative called, Nikibasika, which provides support for 52 children in Kasese, Uganda.

The holidays are over now, but they don’t have to be! Keep the spirit alive by sharing your feel good holiday story with the world. And hey, you might even find yourself on a sizzling hot Cancun beach ($1,800 value) for all your efforts! If you haven’t already, submit your story to The Goodest Story Ever Contest today.

But the fun doesn’t stop there. If you really want to win one of the great prizes being offered, this post is for you! Since the community decides who wins by voting for their favourite story, you can increase your odds by spreading the word to your network.

Here are 6.5 ideas for promoting your story to your peeps:

1. Tell everyone you know. Phone and/or email all your friends, family, co-workers, classmates and anyone else you can think of, and ask them to take 5 minutes to help send you to sunny Mexico. If they’re already registered Do Gooders, it’ll take them even less time! Mention all the prizes and how easy it is to submit a story, and you might even inspire some healthy competition. Continue Reading
   

We hope you all had a safe, happy and healthy holiday season; and that you rang in 2009, the year of change, with a bang! We noticed that despite the holidays, many of you continued to accept and complete challenges. Thank you for your dedication!

In addition to the challenges, we’re proud to announce that 11 Do Gooders shared their ‘Goodest’ holiday stories with the community! Some of them are funny, but most of them are really touching. Why not read them for yourself? And don’t forget to vote for your favourites!

There’s still plenty of time to enter the contest for a chance to win a flight for 2 to sizzling Cancun, a flip video HD camcorder, or a $100 Starbucks gift card! All you have to do is upload your video to YouTube and bring the link to the Contest submission page, and/or grab your digital photos, and then write your story to the best of your ability.

And to help you increase your odds at winning a prize, stay tuned for an upcoming post, “6.5 Ways to Get Yourself to Cancun”.