Social networking sites are carving out unique niches of special-interest groups and responding to the backlash against advertising that has slowed the use of Facebook and MySpace. Case in point: Greenopolis.com.
This beta-stage, lifestyle-oriented web community is designed for members to share tips on living greener and earn recognition for both participation in the web community and for greeer lifestyle choices. Minimal advertising is offset by corporate sponsorship from a somewhat surprising list of partners – you won’t find Patagonia, but you will find Waste Management for example.
An interesting concept employed by the site is is reward points – like frequent flier miles for social networking. The more you participate in the site, the more points you earn. Evidently, Greenopolis plans to connect these points to a commerce center where members can purchase eco-friendly products discounted by points. So the points aren’t redeemable for cash but they do generate real dollar value for site members.
One of the things I like about Greenopolis is its clearly differentiated business model – rather than trying to assemble a large targeted base of eyeballs for ads, it seems designed to create sticky relationships with lifestyle brands using reward points. This gets the social network one step closer to actually paying users to interact with a brand or rewarding them directly for engaging with brand marketing.
Special thanks to the folks at Springwise who revealed this site to me. Springwise is like an entrepreneur’s “test kitchen” that scours the globe for new ventures, business concepts, and marketable trends that are bound to inspire valuable creativity. The full-color monthly newsletter is always provocative, easy to read, and free.
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