In addition to making some ambitious upgrades to his green initiative PlaNYC today, Mayor Bloomberg also announced a new social media tool called “Change by Us,” to launch later this spring. But will it be better than his other yet-to-be launched social media tool for big, bright, bold dumb ideas?
According to Hizzoner: “The new Change By Us social networking platform lets New Yorkers connect to the City agencies and non-profits that can help them green their neighborhoods, and our entire City." The City will pose a question on the site that residents can respond to by text message or on the actual site—but what's strange is, he already has a site for that!
Back in January, Bloomberg announced the program "Give A Minute," which was supposed to be a 311 for ideas on how to improve the city and, in particular, make neighborhoods greener. It too was meant to launch in the spring...and hasn't yet. So why have two programs that essentially fulfill the same purpose? Did they already give up on the previous project? Is anyone clamoring to use either site, anyway?
All of this overabundance of social media tools is stressing us out. We need to be more respectful of the internet—we're over-harvesting precious web resources! At the very least, the city should probably pick slightly more concentrated questions in the future. The first "question" they posed: how can we make our city greener through projects such as storm water management, energy efficiency, creation of new open spaces, etc?
Bloomberg's hippie alter-ego, who seems to be running his Twitter feed today (and we imagine tomorrow as well), gets it: "The Earth was not given to us by our parents. It was loaned to us by our children." If you substitute Internet for Earth, it makes just as much sense.
