'Greening' online newspaper

A series of newspapers like The Washington Post, National Geographic . decided to increase ' green ' content to attract more readers and increase advertising revenue from environmentally friendly manufacturers or retailers.

The newspaper made the decision after former US Vice President Al Gore won the Oscar for the documentary about environmental topic 'An Incovenient Truth'.

For example, Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive from Washington Post Company launched Srig.com, with environmental conscious women. About analysts commented that the time of making this site is calculated relatively reasonable."The number of companies that advertise environmentally friendly items will explode in the next few years," said Josh Bernoff, online communication analyst with Forrester Research. 'Having a company before promoting this is a good method'.

Sprig.com delivers articles about 5 areas of cuisine, fashion, beauty, furniture and lifestyle along with video clips. The beauty section has a video of how to apply nail polish and toenail without affecting the environment. Every day this website gives about 6 articles, written in the style of ' Green Life '.

Al Gore brought the message of environmental protection to the problem of global warming.(Photo: bodogbeat.com)

According to Mark Whitaker, head of the Washington Post's online newspaper, Sprig has more than 100,000 people subscribed to the newsletter via email. Sprig Vice President Goli Sheikholeslami said the advertising price on this site is similar to other Washington Post Company sites. She claims to find advertising much easier than non-Washington Post sites and many big brands have decided to promote their products here.

Meanwhile, the National Geographic Society also launched the Green.NationalGeographic.com website, with more than 2,000 environmental news sites, tour guide videos and ' green ' activities. According to Betsy Scolnik, the online manager of National Geographic, the new website was released after the purchase of TheGreenGuide.com.

The content of Green.NationalGeographic.com is done by National Geographic news room, with more than 200 reporters sending daily environmental news from around the world. Advertising on this site has increased sharply in the past year.

'We clearly see that more and more advertisers are interested in green content,' Scolnik said. 'We are happy that everyone pays attention to protecting this planet after all.' Scolnik does not disclose advertising revenue or visits, but she claims growth in Internet business shows how National Geographic is growing in this area.

While media companies are increasingly focusing on the environmental movement, independent ' green ' sites like TreeHugger.com are calculating whether to sell this domain to a traditional paper newspaper. is for those companies to have their own websites and compete with each other.

President TreeHugger Ken Rother said one of the reasons why he refused to sell the domain name was because of the revenue and the number of viewers increased sharply after Al Gore's success with the movie ' An Inconvenient Truth '. Many well-known companies such as Hertz and Sundance advertised on this site and the number of viewers doubled since November, to about 1.6 million per month. However, Rother fears ad revenue will decline because customers have more options, especially after Sprig's sales increased sharply. 'We have the strength of being trusted by readers', he said confidently. 'Other companies will have to develop readership if they want to succeed'.

K. LINH