South Korea-based electronics giant Samsung will be donating $3 million to the charities chosen by Ellen DeGeneres, TechCrunch reported.
Samsung has given the donation because the company was pleased with the results that Ellen's most talked about selfie moment at the awards made. The host apparently used a Samsung Galaxy Note to take the celebrity-filled picture. Another TechCrunch report said some of the 11 stars in the photo were Meryl Streep, Bradley Cooper, Julia Roberts and Brad Pitt. The selfie was retweeted more than 2 million times.
While there was speculation that Samsung paid DeGeneres to use the phone, the company said this was not true. Although Samsung was a sponsor at the Oscars and that it worked together with ABC that broadcast the show, it was Ellen who chose to "organically incorporate" the Galaxy Note to take the picture, the report said.
In a statement sent to TechCrunch, Samsung was quoted as saying, "While we were a sponsor of the Oscars and had an integration with ABC, we were delighted to see Ellen organically incorporate the device into the selfie moment that had everyone talking. A great surprise for everyone, she captured something that nobody expected. In honor of this epic moment and of course, the incredible response of nearly 3 million re tweets, we wanted to make a donation to Ellen's charities of choice: St Jude's and the Humane Society. Samsung will donate 1.5 million dollars to each charity."
The other TechCrunch report said that Samsung was named over 5,000 times throughout the show and that close to 30,000 unique conversations about the selfie taken by the popular host using the company's camera. However, that report also said that Ellen was apparently tweeting photos and posts backstage using an iPhone and not with the Galaxy Note that was used in the selfie that had Twitterverse raving for about 20 minutes.
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