Environmentalists See Red

If a faucet is dripping in a city park, and there's only one environmentalist there to see it - does anybody listen? Though the power of a new iPhone and iPod Touch application called EcoSnoop, they will now. EcoSnoop blends environmental activism and responsibility with social networking, and backs it up with the power of the iPhone's easy access camera and GPS tagging capabilities to create a new tool that is both easy to use.

The premise is simple, yet powerful. Say you are walking down the street one evening and you notice an office building that has left on the majority of their lights, even though the business is closed. Snap a quick photo with your iPhone, and input as much information about the case as you see it. Through GPS, the case will be tagged so that other EcoSnoop environmentalists in the area can see it on their local maps as well, providing comments and suggestions on how to resolve the case.

All it takes now is one of these EcoSnoopers to walk into the building the next day armed with not only the necessary evidence, but the support of others in the community and a plan of action on how to resolve the situation. Once a resolution is in place, the location can be tagged as resolved and given a green thumbs up as an environmentally aware business.


While EcoSnoop has its roots in the iPhone, a back end website is available for viewing cases as well. Currently undergoing a make-over, the EcoSnoop website will carry over the content from the feet-on-the street teams and special monitoring tools will be made available to city and state governments, campuses, and businesses along with concerned citizens. Integration with Facebook and Twitter will allow cases to gather awareness even quicker within communities.

Two versions of EcoSnoop are currently available for the iPhone - a free, ad supported version, and a ad-free version for those environmentalists willing to drop $1.99 towards the cause. Plans for expansion to other platforms including Android, Windows Mobile, Blackberry and Palm are currently in the works.


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