Monday, April 21, 2008

Answer to CNET including Flock Eco in "Will Social Networking stop corporate Greenwashing"

This is a response to CNET mentioning Flock launching an "Earth Day" edition of the Flock browser in an article titled "Will Social Networking Stop Corporate Greenwashing?"

Green Social Networking services and products are fundamentally different then corporate greenwashing. Here is why: Corporations are driven by a few people with self gain in mind. So they market according to trends without actually genuinely contributing to the cause or engaging in it.
Social Networks as a product/service rely on the tastes/opinions of masses of people getting interested in something. So it is their job to make the product engaging to the users and therefore engage users with Green awareness and news. Since being informed is the first step to affecting change this is a genuine commitment to the green cause that is the fundamental separator between Green social networking products and corporate green washing.

Green Social Networking products/services are in essence an internet model of wether or not the Public at large will rally around Green causes. If the Green Social Networking services are a success it is because the Public genuinely cares about Green. Meaning the social networking product succeeded because it got pick up from large amounts of people because it did its job at actually engaging users with Green awareness.

Download Flock Eco for yourself tomorrow to see what i mean by engaging users with Green Awareness. You will see that it REALLY does help people stay informed on all things green which is the first step to affecting environmental change. Also a very important differentiator is that Flock Eco donates 10% of search proceeds to an environmental cause of the users choice. The more people use Flock Eco and search the web with it the more money is raised to help the environment.
Other examples of Social networking services like Greenbook, an application on Facebook, are further proof that SNS are really helping the Green cause and are not just greenwashing. Greenbook is carbon neutralizing Facebook users by making them view ads and then donating proceeds to buying CO2 debits. There is not much of a Carbon footprint to producing Greenbook or Flock Eco for that matter but there is a lot of gain from people using these services.
So in my book the jury is still out on green social networking BECAUSE the jury is still out on wether or not the PUBLIC at large will rally around the environment and green causes.

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