Max Gladwell

EcoURLs adds a new green layer to major social news sites.

Social news sites are integral to the social web. They level the media playing field, giving smaller publishers, such as bloggers, an equal shot in generating attention and traffic to their sites. They also democratize news such that Big Media no longer dictates what is important and what is not (at least on the social web). It’s up to users to decide through votes (up or down) and comments. More than likely you know them as Digg or StumbleUpon.

These major news networks of Web 2.0 are organized by categories ranging from politics to comic books. The environment gets its own category, though it doesn’t go much deeper in terms of subcategories. Enter EcoURLs. This new site from EcoGeek founder Hank Green and social media strategist Muhammad Saleem promises to better organize and distribute the most popular green news.

“Using EcoURLs’ unique system, you can help spread the word about the most important environmental stories and issues while you yourself discover them. We ask that people who use EcoURLs take a little bit of time to promote the stories that they find on other sites. By working together, these vital environmental topics will spread like fire into new and old media outlets alike.”

You can submit news directly to the site like most other services. What sets it apart is the integration with Digg, StumbleUpon, Reddit, Propeller, and del.icio.us. If, for example, the story you submit to EcoURLs has already been Dugg, the vote count button/link will show up automatically. If not, then you can submit the story to any of these other sites directly from EcoURLs, and it automates many of the submission steps.

The eco categories include science, technology, transportation, nature, politics, agriculture, recycling, food, and business. Whereas a green story on Digg is simply filed under “Science > Environment”, EcoURLs goes much deeper. Alas, that’s the nature of a vertical social news site. But there’s also some added efficiency. If you’re going to submit a green story to Digg or Reddit anyway, it actually makes sense to do it through EcoURLs. While Digg has the traffic, EcoURLs has the convenience and more detailed categorization. Of course, EcoURLs features its own voting system, which is shaped like at tree, and you can comment on any story.

This ultimately provides a new green layer for each of these major social news sites by enabling people to push green stories out to them while also importing the ratings back to EcoURLs. We see a fair bit of value to be had and feel that EcoURLs has the potential to succeed where sites like Hugg have failed.

The site is still in early beta with only a handful of stories, and we look forward to seeing it grow.

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