Social Networking sites

Statistics regarding traffic on social networking sites such as Facebook and Myspace are staggering.

• Facebook has 24 million active users, and with 3% growth a week plans to have 50 million users by the end of the year.

• Nearly all college students have a Facebook profile, and now that anyone can join, growth is occurring in all age groups and internationally as well.

• Whats more is that 50% of Facebook users come back to the site everyday(*).

Frequent visitation to Facebook is a phenomenon that has made the site a huge part of many lives. It allows people to represent themselves online, and spread and share information over real connections. → The next step is to use these amazing networks for good. There are many great groups and causes that people can already join on Facebook, but the plan to implement the idea of a Daily Pledge into the network, and why it is different and effective is outlined below.

THE IDEA: An application on Facebook called “Daily Pledge” that is created to better use this social networking site for green ideals.

The main premise is to have a formal pledge that people will people make a commitment to:

“I pledge to live life responsibly every day by taking into account the social and environmental consequences of each of my actions.”

There can be a simpler and abbreviated pledge that will appear in the icon that is added to each users profile. This is what will be immediately viewable on social networking sites, and after seeing it, other users will soon understand what it means to add the pledge to their profile as well.

HOW IT WILL LOOK:

• The Facebook application will add a thin green border that goes around the edge of the users profile picture
  • The green border is a subtle way to represent that one cares about the environment, and could be attractive to users in that matter.
• In addition, a small icon designed to fit perfectly below their picture will also be added.
  • The icon will help explain the green border a little, and act as a link to the application’s home page on Facebook.

(Here are potential icons, and a sample Facebook profile)

Each application on Facebook has a homepage which details what the application is all about. The Daily Pledge page will include information similar to this blog that explains the pledge, why it is important, and invite people to participate.

GOALS OF THE DAILY PLEDGE:
To get people to consider the environment with each action and decision they make during the day.

• The Pledge is worded so that it will act as a constant reminder of the consequences of one’s decisions.
  • For example, a person can decide to hold on to a bottle a little bit longer and wait to recycle it instead of throwing it away, bike or walk instead of driving, support wind/solar power, re-use items, and to simply turn the lights off when leaving a room, etc…
• It feels like most people already know many ways they can better utilize resources and live green, the problem is getting them to consistently take each opportunity to do so everyday.
  • The reality is that there are many opportunities each day to decide how you will do something, almost all of your decisions, in fact, can have social and environmental consequences. We want people to make the most and best choices everyday.

The underlying theme of Daily Pledge is that it calls for personal responsibility. There is a lot of talk about climate change, but not everyone is acting to fix this. Personal responsibility is where change is going to have to be made, because after all it is the only thing that each of us is wholly responsible for and capable of immediately changing. Adding the Daily Pledge to one’s online profile is an important step in how we decide to live the rest of our lives; it is a challenge and opportunity for everybody to start doing their part.

WHY IT IS IMPORTANT, AND WHY IT WILL WORK:
Climate Change has clearly become a concern today. Many large corporations, including the media are now including green in their logos; the Daily Pledge offers the opportunity for individuals to also signify they care about living green in a simple way.

• A users profile picture on the web represents their identity, the Daily Pledge literally attaches green to ones name and picture, characterizing themselves as someone who will embody environmental ideals.

The Daily Pledge is kind of a twist on the Graduation Pledge, which addresses social and environmental issues in potential workplaces, but this takes it a step further to include more people and emphasize personal responsibility each day.

• “I Pledge” is something that anybody can commit to everyday. This daily pledge is broad enough to appeal to the masses, but specific enough that people understand its importance and are willing to be held accountable to what it says in a public profile.

The goals of the project are attainable because Facebook now has an open source code that allows anybody to develop an application if they can write the program and host it somewhere. On Facebook, each person’s connections (friends) will be able to see that someone with the icon on his or her page is committed to living a green life, every day. If someone agrees with that, they can add it to their page as well, then those person’s connections will see it, and they can also add the pledge, and so on. Ideas can spread very well on Facebook, there are applications with over 3 million active users. Things like this can go “viral” on Facebook much like videos go viral by taking advantage of the huge network of people that each user is connected to.

• This can become popular because of the ease to add this green border to their picture. Facebook users are familiar with applications and how to add them. A few clicks is all it will take to add the pledge to their profile. Hopefully, Facebook’s real networks and connections can lead thousands, even millions to add the pledge to their profile, and I don’t see this as unrealistic if it starts to catch on.

“I Pledge” can be a point a pride that people “wear” on their online profile, and when they view it everyday, they will be reminded of their commitment to the type of decisions they will make in their lives. It can be compared to wearing a ribbon or button for a cause everyday, or raising a flag everyday. Instead this pledge is just conveniently located in a prominent spot on their personal online profile. People will be proud, and happy to have it represent them, because as Thomas Friedman says, “Green is the new Red-White-& Blue.”

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THE DAILY PLEDGE FUNDAMENTALS:

• The style in which information is presented, and the nature of the pledge is not abrasive or punitive like other campaigns can be.
  • Users will not be guilted into making the pledge or feel bad for not giving money, or for not knowing better. This pledge will be worded well and just founded on a solid idea that encourages everyone to join.

• It will try and be more inspirational than anything else, it will encourage all to join, and seek out more ways to live green if they want to take it a step farther.
• Daily Pledge is addressing the issue of personal responsibility on Facebook because people’s profiles are part of their identity, and we are not seeing change in behaviors at the rate we should.
  • The Daily Pledge is an important step that we as a society need to be taking whether people just know about this simple pledge, are considering more measures to live green, or are already living green.

• Living green is an ideal that we need to ingrain into our minds so we focus on, act on, and inspire others to do the same at all times. This needs to become the norm, because it isn’t right now.
  • I am going to have to disagree with Kermit the frog, because it is easy to be green, it just takes the conscious decision to do so; the Daily Pledge encourages and provides this opportunity.

• Ideally people will be proud to add this to their profile, and it will not be a hard decision to make the pledge in front of others on Facebook.
• In the end, adding this pledge on Facebook is more visible than joining a group that says, ‘stop global warming,’ and it is a bigger commitment than giving money to a cause. In theory it should start to put an end to wasteful ways immediately as people take responsibility for themselves and live green.
  • A green border on a profile picture is very visible; it is not buried in a heap of information that can be contained in a personalized profile. It immediately, yet subtly shows a face, on Facebook, making a recognizable commitment.

THE NEXT STEP in the pledge is to utilize the homepage of the application once the visible part (the green border & icon) of the application has caught on.

• A great benefit on Facebook applications is that people can comment and discuss issues on these home pages.
  • It provides a place where people can share ideas on things they are doing in their lives to live green. The homepage will be a virtual space for learning and growing in a network of people with many ideas and resources.

This project will focus on Facebook for now, but the pledge could spread just as easily on Myspace. Daily Pledge could have its own page on Myspace where it hosts an icon and people could just add the embed link to their own page. *The social commitment part of the formal pledge has not been focused on as much in this project, but can relate very much to the environmental aspect of this contest.

In addition to the educational aspect that the Daily Pledge can provide to users regarding the environment, is an inspirational side explaining what making the pledge can lead to.

• It can explain and encourage that if everyone is personally responsible, then collectively it will soon make a huge impact.
  • One step is to have our choices and actions show, and force, businesses and the government to provide the products and services we demand for our lifestyles
    • Showing we can eventually move away from our dependency on fossil fuels.
• Personal responsibility is the most important thing to influence. We can keep waiting for somebody else to fix our problems, or we can just take responsibility for ourselves, and eventually as more and more pledge, those running businesses or in leadership positions can also influence change that is bigger than their personal impact everyday.

It is a privilege to live here on earth, and we cannot continue to extort its resources at the rate we have been. We can still enjoy most of our luxuries to the fullest, but just need to be making smart actions on how we live and act. Hopefully, we will get to the point where there will no longer be any lights unnecessarily left on! The small and easy steps can easily be overlooked, and easily solved everyday; we need to live responsibly by committing to a pledge that benefits the environment.

(*)Facebook stats retrieved from Facebook’s F8 Keynote address by Mark Zuckerberg (http://developers.facebook.com/videos.php)