In today’s lecture a questionnaire was held about the question: how green are you? All the students needed to answer questions about a ‘green environment’ voting with their clickers (a small device which registers your answers on a computer). After a few statements like ‘I turn of the lights when I leave the room’, ‘I plant trees and flowers in our neighborhood and ‘I try to make space for wild animals, I realized that most of the students in my class are not really green… We want to behave green, but most of us do not have the time to make a difference.
Egon de Bruin understands this and thought of a way to make people aware of a green environment. He invented the treemagotchi.
The treemagotchi is a digital tree which can be planted online and added to your social network site. Together with a dwarf you have to take care of this tree. Therefore, you need at least two times per month ‘beukennootjes’. These can be earned by accomplishing durable actions, like installing Ecofon, an ink saving letter type for your computer. Extra ‘beukennootjes’ can be earned by special actions, but these will take more effort. With these ‘beukennootjes’ you can buy specials. A swing, a new outfit for your dwarf or a bike. Another possibility is inviting friends. Together with all your friends you can make a wood and contribute to a better world.
Okay, maybe you will think now that this won’t work, but the pilot of last year showed it works. There were 16.000 people how joined the pilot and 80.000 actions were made. The tree was even rewarded with two prizes (de Digitale Pioniers Academie & ASN Bank Wereldprijs). After this experiment, they decided to let the tree enter the real world.
Treemagotchi 2.0, will it be the new trend? Before I can answer this question I have to try it myself. Maybe this makes me a more green person (the test of this morning showed me, I could improve a few things). After planting a tree, dressing the dwarf and letting him swing and jump on the mushroom, I thought it was a really nice idea.
This is a good example of using social media. Online communities and games are really popular. I do not know whether it will be the new Farmville (the online game of facebook were you can create your farm online), but the idea is the same. You get rewarded with toys for your dwarf, when you do a lot of green things. It is a fun way of creating awareness about the environment. Inviting friends and placing the tree on your own social network site creates more publicity. The combination of online fun games and real actions are original and smart. On the website they described their idea: ‘In a fun way making a better world together’. It sounds great and you even receive an e-mail to make sure you won’t forget to look after your tree.
Maybe I can try to make a better world by playing this game (or just have some fun). What do you think? I will tell you about my treemagotchi experiences next time. Feel free to leave a comment and tell about your experiences.
By the way if you decide to plant a tree for yourself, I will invite you. This way I can earn some ‘beukennootjes’! ;-)You can visit my tree on: http://www.treemagotchi.nl/
Source: Dagblad de Pers & http://www.treemagotchi.nl
vrijdag 23 april 2010
Abonneren op:
Posts (Atom)
