“In the meantime, do all your searches on Yahoo. They need the revenue. ”

And Google needs some sort of competition.

here here

While I agree, bolt-on tactics like this are only marginal and therefore not ideal, the general thrust of the second half of your post has an intrinsic flaw. I too am tempted to pursue (and am pursuing) the so-called “learn, earn, return” model. However, donating money to solve problems presupposes the fact that smart dudes are working on solving them and need money. In other words, if we waste our creative passions on stuff that doesn’t make the world a better place, we had better hope somebody else is actually doing the “good work”. So I say, good try Ecocho…but now move on to something else in trying to make the world a little greener.

A bigger problem is that Ecocho doesn’t actually add any value. I’m fond of the saying, “Giving money away is the last refuge of the incompetent.”

1) It’s a tribute to Isaac Asimov (points to the first person to cite the reference)

2) When the only value you add is how you redirect an existing revenue stream, you’re not adding value.

I should know–I raised $6.5 million to do stuff like this back during the first boom.

Michael, I wish you would have condemned this kind of nonsense more strongly. This is clearly a for-profit outfit trying to piggyback off of the “green” hype. There’s no technology or clever idea here. Plenty of sites do this and actually donate ALL the revenue to charity, which in my mind makes some semblance of sense. See this post from dosh dosh:

http://www.doshdosh.com/13-cha.....-for-free/

Giving search traffic to a shady Australian outfit is just ridiculous. I’d rather just give it to Google so I can continue to mooch free food off of all my friends, and let them allocate it to real projects like RE < C.

Ok, I get it… In business sometimes you have to find an angle to get an edge over your competition. But an angle like this seems sneaky to me. You know, a lil phishy/phony.

Take my industry for example, (Real Estate)…are you going “green” because you care, it’s what you understand, and you want to provide excellent service? Or are you going “green” in hopes of landing a couple of upscale clients?

I might sound like an @$& and you might condemn me, but my question still stands.

Ricardo, I stopped reading at “real estate”

this is the same as that freerice gimmick. sure they buy the rice, sure they deliver the rice, but they’re not a charity and they’re not disclosing how much of what they earn is going to charity - and emails to them asking for there margins go ignored.

I don’t blame you…but it’s still a good point.

Ecocho attempt is sad, really.

Google does have competition. It’s called Baidu.

Michael said: “If you want to really help the world, get ridiculously rich doing something that you love and that doesn’t hurt anyone else, and then donate that money to people who know what the hell they are doing. We’re on the verge of actually getting Malaria under control, for example. Now that would be something.”

These are marvelous words. I’m glad that I read through your scolding of Ecocho enough to see this gem. It’s one thing to see what gets your goat. It’s another to see what gets you out of bed in the morning.

I also agree with Davealevine, from above, where he suggests that more of us need to focus on getting something real done ourselves. It is imperative upon all entrepreneurs to find a way to improve the world while making a profit. Both habits are addictive and, in combination, lead to people who get rich and then invest in dozens of companies that achieve even greater victories. Social entrepreneurship is our path to the future.

Kind regards,
Justis Peters

Anybody know how many:
a)visitors per month they have?
b)searches per month they have?
c)revenue per month they have?

I tried to go carbon neutral for a day but not eating any mexican food. Surprisingly it worked.

I think real estate should go green, support green environment.

Wow! (eco)Solid post!

And after your email-sig-print post… I thought you were greenie bashing. While green washing and green pimps need to be called-out, truth is pro-green propaganda is still better than the alternative.

Funny(”flaw”), though, how ‘Zero Discharge’ morphed into ‘Zero Footprint’ … where you discharge, then ‘offset’.

I think ecocho is just not transparent enough. Try to “find our trees” on the website. All you get is a picture and a name (of what, BTW?). No details, numbers, figurs, etc.
Trust and credibility are more important than ever when it comes to ’save the climate’ business/communications ideas. Consumers are sceptical. Seems to me that they did not think about that. I really really wonder why.
I do appreciate that planting trees is a good thing. But I doubt that this will save the earth. And I better do not think about how much energy it needs to grow trees in dry Australia - facing serious problems in water supply…

There’s also greenbacksearch. That was really the first of the green search engines.

Its only google with some packaging and its against the Adsense rules http://adsense.blogspot.com/20.....arity.html

All you eco-distraught people actually impressed by the motives here need to wake up.

Carbon offsets are a SHAM, because Carbon Dioxide is NOT a pollutant.

“Human-caused Global warming” is an absolute HOAX.

Not only are we in the midst of a declining ice age (which peaked just 12,500 years ago), but just the very stipulation that carbon dioxide is “pollution” to begin with is absolutely hysterical! Carbon dioxide, like water, is an essential ingredient for life. Our atmosphere’s concentration of Carbon Dioxide has throughout history varied INSANELY! We’ve experienced thousands of periods, some millions of years long, where CO2 and temperature variability was jaw-droppingly greater than the measly 150 ppmv and 0.5deg we are experiencing now!

http://tinyurl.com/39gnm4

What is What is an “excess” of CO2? What year does one declare to behold the baseline concentration beyond which any additional quantity is “excess”? LOL, it’s ridiculous! Carbon Dioxide should no more be considered “pollution” that an “excess” of raindrops on a rainy day!

Before we submit ourselves to the cost and insecurity of ANY globalwarmingists’ anti-CO2 agenda, we need to DEMAND that these people declare first exactly what year on this graph they desire to be THE everlasting, eternal concentration of CO2 on Earth:

http://tinyurl.com/39gnm4

That’s right, we have them do it right up front, BEFORE carbon caps are “LAW”!

Carbon Credits are a SHAM! Pollution from REAL atmospheric contaminants — such as sulfur dioxide, nasty free radicals, and industrial particulate (crap that ACTUALLY DOES make people sick) is NOT ameliorated by “Carbon Credits”, OR hiking CAFE standards (yet again), or any other of these ridiculous, politically-motivated anti-carbon tax/profit schemes.

All you people who elect globalwarmingists into government, and willingly pay more for services like advertising as demonstrated here, what the hell do you think is the result? A cooler planet? LOL! Get out of here! The planet continues on its path (cooling or warming, who can tell?) UNCHANGED IN THE SLIGHTEST.

Here is the real result: WE PAY more for the things we buy, WE PAY MORE in taxes, and the GOVERNMENT squanders it all on social dependency programs.

Meanwhile Earth continues to WARM and COOL naturally — continues its natural tendencies; deep ice ages followed by periods of undulating warmth that have existed peacefully on this beautiful planet for all of eternity.

pfff, goodtree.com has been around for forever

#20. Randy:

One way to prove your argument that C02 is Not a pollutant, and therefore could Not be contributing to global warming, is to seal yourself into your gargage and keep the engine running on your car or truck.

Before you do you might want to actually read the definition of ‘pollutant’:

“Pollution, in one sense, is the introduction of contaminants into an environment, of whatever predetermined or agreed upon proportions or frame of reference, that causes instability, disorder, harm or discomfort to the physical systems or living organisms therein.[1] “Pollution can be in the form of chemical substances, or energy such as noise, heat, or light. Pollutants can be naturally occurring substances or energies, but are considered contaminants when in excess of natural levels.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pollutant

I think that Randy was just making fun…

If I read the graphic right randy posted here, it shows the last 500 million years of CO2 quantenary average. If so, the funny thing is, that humans seem to be around on this planet since 160,000 years. I cannot see the point of the graphic then. It does not say anything about carbon doxide and it s concentration on earth in a relevant period of time.
“[...]what year on this graph they desire to be THE everlasting, eternal concentration of CO2 on Earth[...]” LOL!!!

I think no scientist has a doubt about changes in the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere. And there are many causes. One might be burning fossil energy sources. You cannot deny that CO2 is set off by doing so.

Even if carbon dioxide would not be a main reason for global warming, it does seem to get warmer and warmer. Now. So, what ever the reason for this is, we have some problems with the environment. I guess it would be reasonable to quit hanging on to theories of conspiracy and become a bit more open minded to the fact that rapid changes of environmental conditions are critical to human societies and economies.

I do agree that the earth warms and cools naturally. But I do think that mankind has an effect on concentration of gases in the atmosphere just by existing in present state. And concentration of several gases in the atmosphere has an effect on global warming (or cooling).

#22: (-:

Im surprised that everyone is getting so worked up about this one. Surely the mere fact that a company is at least trying to do some good should mean that we look to support it. I know there have been search engines like this around for a while and it isnt the most transparent pleadge so far, but how hard is it for all of us to type in Ecocho or the like instead of google or yahoo in the off chance that by your search you may contribute to the 1/500 of a tree? If they do not do this howeevr and this is a sham im sure they will get slammed by the public and for false advertising.

i totally agree with Mike, they need lots of bullshit to grow trees. I can smell the bullshit but no tree in sight.

Good on you Mike. Best thing I’ve heard today.

Hey everyone, my name’s Alex and I’m the web producer for ecocho.

You guys have, quite fairly, been stating your concerns and views on the site and we really welcome this feedback. We really want to address the issues you’ve raised and also to chip in our thoughts.

Some of you have made the valid point of questioning whether carbon offsets are the answer, rather than green technology investment. (There’s also the issue of getting people to consume less and actually make a smaller impact on the environment in the first place.) We actually do intend to invest in other avenues but we saw offsets as a good place to start. Our first goal is/ was to create a buzz and raise awareness - because we know that carbon offsets are a temporary solution rather than a permanent fix. Unfortunately, finding the “right” credible alternative technology scheme to fund is not our immediate field of expertise, and after consulting a range of experts in the field, our advice was that offsets were a good interim measure. We also wanted to only use Government-run schemes, and to involve a respected auditor (KPMG), to put some credibility and independence behind our process.

For us, ecocho is a start; a means for everyday people to make a really small but beneficial switch that takes very little initial effort. Everybody on the internet uses web search, so we felt that this would be a potentially powerful way to involve everyone to do “a bit” - particularly those that feel they can do nothing without ‘expert’ knowledge. We want to challenge the elitist idea that only millionaire philanthropists and authorities on global warming can get involved. Unless we start to include everyone by relating change to something everybody knows, most people will continue to think that they can do little.

I’ve read that many people have questioned our policy of allowing 30% of revenue to cover running costs, but how sustainable would this project be if we didn’t? We hope that this site will be successful long term, so that we can plant a great number of trees and further down the track invest significantly in other projects that show significant promise. But we have to be realistic; we have to allow for our running costs to make this project work.

We’ve had a massive amount of positive input and support from everyday users and we really, really have appreciated that. In fact, we’ve been overwhelmed! However for those of you that are asking big questions, we don’t want to hide behind anything - we are just a small team of guys, there’s only a few of us and we are all hopeful that ecocho can make a positive impact and involve everyone - not just policy makers.

We want to hear feedback - good and bad - and we hope to respond to all issues people have.

Thanks for reading,

Alex
Ecocho

Saving paper & trees is cool, even if Michael Arrington makes fun of it.

Ecocho is a copy of Ecoogler.com iniciative, which is basically the same idea, but actually planting real trees in the Amazon, through an association with Aquaverde, a non profit association in Geneva.

How much money was Ecocho planning on making from this website compared to the amount it was planning on donating?

Who owns the website and what relationship does it have to advertising company Found Agency?

Doesn’t soliciting people to use your Goodle Adsense site constitute a breach of the Google Adsense policy? https://www.google.com/adsense/support/bin/answer.py?answer=48182&topic=8423

Google has a very solid point here. When people start searching with Ecocho they will know that any clicks on ads will benefit the environment, naturally this will lead them to purposely click on ads ( I know I did a few times when I checked out Ecocho ). Ofcourse this is against Google’s policy and it should be. They made a promise to their advertisers that they will maintain the integrity of their traffic, and thus they are obliged, and have every right, to do so.
I’m not saying I don’t support Ecocho, just that some of the respones I read against Google are a bit over the top.

http://www.smh.com.au/news/web.....15487.html

a little light reading about the halt and the owner, who seems shady anyway

Glad to see the extent of this ‘buzz’ - hopefully will help limit the sprouting of dodgy, valueless services and products. If any of you are curious, follow the ecocho threads to find more of the same…

Let’s put some of this energy toward initiatives with some real substance. Our planet and species need the assist.

echocho takes the google searchengine.. or i.e. “adsense for search” and attempts to generate some $ out of air.. ok .. and alongside drags some b.s. story about lepricons. Could these April fools get any betta?

I agree with Andrew. That’s basically the bottomline. The idea of this site is fantastic really, but I do agree they need to be more transparant. There are a lot of abuses in the world of so called charity …

So my advice would be that they should be more transparent, also about the results, what they do … and then it can be a real good start.