As of early Friday, the Red Cross said it had raised $8 million in donations via texts, with the potential that millions of dollars more could come in over the long holiday weekend.

The simple process requires a mobile phone user with a text messaging capability to send "Haiti" to 90999, and a $10 donation is applied to their phone bill. Cellular companies are forwarding 100% of the total to the American Red Cross. "We honestly have no clue how much more to expect, but have been really surprised and overwhelmed by the amount of donations via texting," Red Cross spokeswoman Carrie Housman told Computerworld .

The $8 million raised in less than three days after the first earthquake ravaged Haiti was "unheard of," she said. Half the total was raised in less than a day, with $4 million raised by midday Thursday, following the earthquake, which hit late Tuesday.

"We never raised this much money with a mobile campaign, especially at $10 a time," she said, noting that some smaller domestic campaigns have been tried since 2008. Compared with earlier attempts going back to 2008, "this one has just blown the results out of the water."

She attributed the terrific response to the dire emergency, the closeness of Haiti to the U.S., and also the simplicity of donating via text.