3rdWhale Mobile is one of those smaller green tech companies you don’t always hear about unless you happen to know them by name. This Vancouver,Canada, based software developer is most well known though for an iPhone application which lets you live a greener, more healthy lifestyle on the go by using the phone’s built-in GPS to help you locate local green businesses. The company, which recently began a merger with a similar green tech lifestyles company called GenGreen, recently let us sit down with CEO Boyd Cohen to learn a little about it.
image via 3rdWhale Mobile
EarthTechling: Tell us about 3rdWhale.
Boyd Cohen: We were founded in April 2008. We were originally focused on building a sustainability community for a global audience using Web tools. We were wanting to get people to engage in action offline. When I heard about the App store from Apple, a light went off. It would be really interesting to be a first mover, I thought, in the mobile and sustainability space. We went to work on a mobile application for the iPhone where the core functionality is a location based service which lets users find the nearest green business where they are. We are now the leader in sustainability and mobility.
ET: Sustainability and mobility? Can you explain that?
Cohen: Our desired and focused niche is the growing use of smart phones for more daily activities. Any solutions that could help these smart phone owning people live a healthier green lifestyle while on the go is who we are targeting.
ET: I noted your application is free. How do you guys do that?
Cohen: We are in the pretty early days in the app world in terms of how you monetize it. We experimented with a light (free) version and a premium one. The light one gets downloaded much more. We decided we would really rather have users right now so we moved away from the premium version we had for the time being.
ET: What are some of the criteria for the businesses in your database?
Cohen: The minimum criteria is they have to meet five or six key points about commitment to sustainability values, usually in some sort of product or service they offer. Organic, fair trade, local – those are all factors that can be brought in. We also create mechanism for users to flag businesses they don’t feel should be in there.
ET: When consumers come using your service, what are they looking for?
Cohen: Thy are trying find a more healthy, sustainable option wherever they are. If you have a GPS-enabled device that helps you find what you need, all of those things you might want to do to live a healthier, green lifestyle while on the go you have access to in the palm of your hand.
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Thanks Nino for the interview. We thought you and your readers would like to know that since the interview, we have merged with GenGreen to form GenGreen Digital, and have likewise merged apps to have one single free app, Find Green, free. It’s on iPhone now, Google Android soon, followed by Blackberry Storm and Curve.
It’s soon going to have a coupon aspect, so when you’re near a business that’s participating, you can either download or just turn your phone sideways and there’s a coupon to use in the store. You support local, green businesses, and save money. Not bad, eh?
Find Green on iPhone can be found here: http://bit.ly/2BaaXl (iTunes link)
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