Are you really green?… Teen greens online… Advertisers run from Facebook political mix… Online share-house kitty manager

• Are you really green?
• Teen greens online
• Advertisers run from Facebook political mix
• Online share-house kitty manager

Are you really green?

Everybody likes the idea of being green, especially when someone else has to do all the heavy lifting.

According to a recent survey of 1741 US employees by Sun Microsystems published by Inc.com, 73% of workers want to work for businesses that are environmentally-friendly – but only 52% say they turn lights off when they leave a room at the office, and 34% report they turn off their computers at the end of the day.

Interestingly, people take more responsibility for conservation at home. The same survey found 92% of people conserve energy at home by turning off the lights and 58% shut down their computers.

TOP OF PAGE 

Green teens go online

Almost 40% of US teenagers online consider themselves environmentalists, with 15% subscribing to views that could be described as “hardcore” green, according to a recent Jupiter Research survey reported by Promo magazine.

And what appeals to these green teens? Well, online shopping and sweepstakes apparently. Teens who identify with green issues are 5% more likely than other teens to enter online sweepstake-style competitions, 6% more likely to shop online and 7% more likely to buy from a bricks-and-mortar store after seeing an online advertisement (so much more environmentally friendly than all those paper pamphlets).

And they like music – green teens spend a median of seven hours weekly listening to recorded music, compared to five hours for teens overall, and they spend $US100 annually on music – 25% above the average for all teens, according to the survey.

TOP OF PAGE 

For advertisers, Facebook and politics don’t miss

Major firms Direct, Vodafone, Virgin Media, the AA, Halifax and the Prudential have all withdrawn ads from Facebook after finding them positioned on a page for British right-wing political party the British National Party, the BBC reports.

The advertisements appeared on a rotating basis on the BNP-related page and came to prominence after being identified by the New Media Age magazine.

Virgin said it had to “protect its brand.” Facebook declined to comment.

TOP OF PAGE 

Who paid that bill? Let’s go online

Anybody who has ever lived in a share house will know how thorny things can get when it comes to figuring out who paid for which bill. Well, according to Mashable, all those squabbling student households now have a new online tool to help them keep track of money, called Billshare.

Billshare can either be used by an individual to help them budget, or you can create a group that allows the members to enter in payments, receipts, and request money from another user in your group.

These groups are very private (no public options at all), and allow for only one administrator. See the stats on your contribution, other group members’ contributions, as well as spending patterns.

Best of all, a user can send private messages to another group member, or communicate with the entire group via the message board on the group’s homepage – the perfect forum for complaining about why the power just got cut off. Email alerts are also sent to those who still owe, which hopefully would minimise the likelihood of unexpected utility terminations.

TOP OF PAGE