Facebook adds organ donor status, registry to timeline

CBS/Facebook

(CBS/AP) Facebook wants to make it easier to donate your organs and broadcast that information to all of your friends.

Users in the United States and the U.K. can enroll as organ donors via links to official registries on the world's biggest social networking site, said chief executive officer Mark Zuckerberg.

Facebook users who are already organ donors can add that information to their timeline. Zuckerberg said his friendship with Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, who had received a liver transplant before he died last year, helped spur the idea, as did talks with his girlfriend Priscilla Chan, a medical student.

Those who would like to become an organ donor can follow a link that will launch a state-by-state directory of organ donation registries. The links should make it easier for people who want to donate their organs to sign up.

More than 112,000 Americans are waiting for organs and 18 people die every day from the lack of available organs, according to Donate Life America, a nonprofit that is teaming with Facebook.

Zuckerberg announced the organ donor update to Facebook on "Good Morning America" Tuesday.

Facebook has 901 million monthly active users and is based in Menlo Park, Calif. The social network is busy readying an initial public stock offering said to be pegged at $5 billion. Facebook's IPO could place the company's value at $100 billion.