Green Social Network Startups Tap Competition
Can the power of social networks on the web be leveraged effectively to fight climate change? That’s a question a lot of companies — from startups to Yahoo to Facebook — are wondering, and it’s still very unclear. But the uncertainty isn’t stopping young firms like Carbonrally and Climate Culture from working on new deals and projects that leverage competition to encourage users to cut energy consumption and fight climate change.
Last week, Carbonrally CEO Jason Karas told us that the one-and-a-half-year-old company has sealed deals with both eBay and Seventeen magazine to create competitions and challenges targeted at the partners’ user communities. For Seventeen magazine, Carbonrally has created a print and web-based campaign in which teenage girls can join teams to take actions that will reduce carbon emissions, like giving away an item of clothing, or buying something online instead driving to the store (yeah, these aren’t really “challenging” per se, and we’d hope that teenage girls would be interested in taking more substantial actions). For eBay, Carbonrally is working on its new green marketing push, “eBay Green Team,” and eBay has sponsored Carbonrally challenges, too.
