Earth2tech, latest clean technology pub
GigaOm has launched a new site, earth2tech, to cover clean technology.
This is an important space, and we’re glad to see the new site off to a great start. This is such important area, in fact, that we here at VentureBeat would like to start our own site on clean and alternative energy technology. If any of you are interested in helping out, let us know. We’re considering candidates now.
This latest blog comes as many other efforts are launching. Here’s a summary:
Dow Jones last week announced it was launching a subscription based newsletter and Web site devoted to clean technology investing, adding it to its other subscription-only, venture-focused publications that include VentureWire. (Dow Jones did not say how much the clean-tech newsletter will cost nor its exact launch date, but VentureWire costs about $900 annually.) The product is the first to emerge from the company’s recently formed new energy and commodities group, which tracks public and private investments in clean tech, and Dow Jones said it has more offerings to come.
Dow Jones rival The New York Times publishes a regular series on alternative energy and green tech, along with a consumer-oriented blog called Eco-Worrier. Cambridge, Mass.-based upstart Greentech Media, which is backed by Lightspeed Venture Partners, plans to unveil an industry news Web site and newsletter later this summer. Its newsletter will sell for about $850. There are bunch of other sites like Treehugger.com, which have been educating people about green technologies and eco-trends for free for some time. Greener World Media, an Oakland media company, raised more than $250,000 in January, and is led by Joel Makower, a well-known writer and editor on green business topics. That company publishes the sites GreenBiz.com, ClimateBiz.com and GreenerBuildings.com.
Sites are popping up everywhere: RiverWired seeks to connect 18-to-30-somethings who care about healthy and sustainable lifestyles – hoping to tap into growing green-oriented marketing budgets of U.S. companies. Founded by CEO Catherine Billon, a veteran of Time Warner, National Geographic, and Discovery Channel and a couple of tech startups, RiverWired lets green-minded consumers blog about biofuel, share shopping tips, photos and videos, and skim categorized feeds from other green-oriented blogs and websites. If all goes well, it hopes a company like Toyota might be convinced to sponsor the site’s car and transportation area, for example. At its beta launch in early April, RiverWired was scant on content, though that may have since changed.
Another effort, Greenlight Magazine, is distributed in PDF form with all the pagination and graphical style of an old-school publication and lots of Web links, too. Greenlight produces most of its own content – mainly about alternative, “earth-friendly” products – and has built a base of 37,000 paying subscribers, says publisher and co-founder Thea Selby.
Finally, SustainableCircles, founded in 2004 in San Francisco, recently raised $3.5 million from individual investors. It produces an animated cartoon series – The Unsustainables – for Web, mobile, and TV delivery and its SustainLane site posts users’ reviews of green products.
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About the Author, Matt Marshall
Matt launched VentureBeat in September of 2006, with the realization that no one else was covering the entrepreneurial and tech innovation scene with the velocity or depth that he was. Prior to founding VentureBeat, he covered venture capital for the San Jose Mercury News from 2001 to 2006. In 2002, Matt was awarded "Journalist of the Year" by the Northern California Society of Professional Journalists. Prior to working at the Merc, he was a correspondent for the Wall Street Journal in Bonn, Germany from 1995 to 1998, and a writer for the Washington Post in 1994. Matt holds a PhD in Government and an MA in German and European Studies from Georgetown University. In addition to VentureBeat, Matt is also the Executive Producer of DEMO, the leading launchpad event for emerging technologies.
