Lil Green Lifestyle
Have you tried Green Patch, LLC’s Lil Green Patch application on Facebook or Myspace? What do you think of it? The application along with it’s sibling, Lil Blue Cove, contributes through the Causes Facebook application to The Nature Conservancy. Using the Causes application gives Lil Green Patch users some assurance that the donations really do occur. Both applications seem to be very successful with over 7 million monthly active users combined.
How it works
Since I am not a developer of this application I am not 100% sure how it works, but this is what I have gathered so far:
- Every pageview on the site show Ads which contribute revenue (CPC driven?) to the project.
- The developers subtract out the cost of running the applicaton and contribute the remainder via Causes to the Nature Conservancy’s Rainforest reforestation projects.
- Users can see their own part of the contribution via the prominently displayed Personal Rainforest Saved number in square feet.
How users contribute
It appears to me that you can earn square feet via
- Sending plants to friends which they accept
- Buy square feet (15 for $3)
- Offers (such as adding another application for 1 square feet)
- Shopping (affiliate programs) which contribute when you buy products
Maximizing your contribution
So, given what I know, how can you make the most money for the company and thus save the most rainforest. Items 2-4 above basically just need to be done to increase your contribution. Where I think the most interesting part of the application is item 1. Here is my strategy:
- Since Facebook restricts the total number of plants that can be sent to your friends on a daily basis (notification limit). You have to be very careful who you send them to. You should choose only friends that you expect will accept them.
- Assuming the ads are CPC based, then clicking on them is the only way the application can make the money needed to contribute to the cause. Thus click on them, but make sure to click on the ones that are the most interesting to you. To be clear, I am not recommending some form of click fraud. I want the advertisers to get their value and thus they will pay more for these ad spots.
- Ask lots of people to send you plants and make sure to accept them all. You will be contributing indirectly via your friends. Basically you are contributing your time and labor.
- Invite more friends to add the application and use it. Again you will be indirectly contributing via your friends.
There are other parts of the application such as the Arcade, but I am not sure how it contributes other than presenting more Ads. The rest of the site is designed more as a interactive friend feature which is good. You can take care of each others patches (water, weeding, etc.) and give each other gifts (signs, etc.). All this earns points which you can use for more landscaping, gift giving, etc.
I’ve personally met a lot of great people via the application and would welcome any other users to add me as a friend so we can exchange plants, etc.
What is your strategy for this application?
Update Facebook has disabled my account for posting a link to this post on my own wall inside of the Lil Green Patch application. My guess is it triggered some automated anti-spam algorithm. Well, nothing I can do until they send me an email or something. Just proves that no good deed goes unpunished.
Update #2 Facebook has reviewed my case and enabled my account. I am grateful for their prompt action. It was an interesting experience in how some of the applications work. I think the use of the same backend code by Lil Green Patch and Lil Blue Cove caused the problem. For now I am thinking of no longer using Lil Blue Cove. Be careful out there folks!
