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Leave your footprints at Earth.org: New non-profit global travel guide
Added: (Sun Sep 27 2009)
Factsheet
Leave your footprints at Earth.org, the open travel guide
The idea behind Earth.org (Earth dot org)
Imagine a destination with free and trustworthy travel information. Imagine that all this information comes from YOU and your fellow travellers from all over the world.
Now there is a destination for you to find travel information and share your knowledge: Earth.org (www.earth.org) is a newly launched, collaboratively written online travel guide with a non-profit-approach.
What we do is: we write this travel guide all together!
"Earth.org is available for public collaboration because we are impressed, stunned, inspired and blown away by the possibilities of collaboration in a Wiki. We believe the wiki is a new way for us all to work together to conserve and improve local travel knowledge." - Rob from Earth.org.
You just add your favourite restaurant in your hometown or some info on your traveling experiences. You share your knowledge - and if we all do this a new way of travel can emerge.
More: How people can get involved: http://www.earth.org/get-involved
Background
Our wish is to provide responsible travel information that travellers can trust. Reliable and trustworthy travel information can be difficult to find on the Internet. At the same time, we have always had one overwhelming thought: Can we build a house if everyone brings one brick, contributing one little piece at a time? Just like the house, the collaborative editing of articles is a perfect way to assemble knowledge. This is also called a Wiki. So, the collaborative process of assembling information online is the perfect way to provide reliable and trustworthy travel information.
Mathias from Earth.org: "We also want a project that gives back – selfishly for our lives and holistically for our beautiful planet earth. This refers to our non-profit approach. Our only interest is the Earth.org traveller!"
Earth.org has a non profit approach
Earth.org is independent from business interests - and because of this it is a social experiment dependent on your engagement. Our only interest is the traveller, the sightseer, the explorer. Teresa from Earth.org: "Even if you are not travelling tell us about your hometown. If you join us and contribute it can happen!"
We put our "non profit approach" into action: At least 50% of our net earnings (after taxes) will go into environmental, social or cultural projects. We planted 237 trees in India - one for each country in the world. We went to a very small remote village in the Indian Himalaya's as the first tourists - and took pictures of the inhabitants. Afterwards we framed the picture, gifted them back to the villagers and saw a vision of pure happiness.
More about the non profit approach: http://www.earth.org/non-profit-approach
More about the Earth.org projects: http://www.earth.org/projects
A 100% remote Earth.org team
Earth.org is built from a 100% remote team. Remote work is new. Remote work is independent in respect to the workers location. It is working together from remote locations through the Internet. Be it a bedroom in San Francisco or a beach in Bali. Most of the 30 team members have never seen each other. That's somehow strange. Some have seen others, some have seen only few, many have also seen no one, but no one has seen all! And we are 100% remote- which means: No one is sitting next to anyone. We have no office, but it works! That also means that we have to cope with different time zones and even different seasons. Imagine Justin in the US, Otto in Australia and Anne in France. At least one person has to be prepared for a late-night chat. As we have grown, we have found communication tools that allow us to work more efficiently.
Otto and Mathias Stricker, two brothers with perfectly working family ties, share the ownership of the Earth.org GmbH.
Anne from Earth.org: "We are pleased to work with the best from all over our beautiful planet earth. So, whoever works for Earth.org can work from anywhere, and in anyway. The only thing required: A positive attitude."
More about remote work: http://www.earth.org/remote-work
Additional sources:
Visit the Earth.org press room and get the logo, images, FAQs and latest news: http://www.earth.org/press-room
Follow Earth.org on Twitter: http://twitter.com/earth_dot_org
Earth.org on XING: https://www.xing.com/net/earthdotorg/
Earth.org Facebook group: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Earthorg/50617312298?ref=ts
Contact:
If you would like to schedule an interview or need more information about Earth.org, please contact
Teresa Brandstetter
teresa@earth.org
skype: teresabrand
Location: Austria
www.earth.org
Earth.org is run by the Earth.org GmbH,
Geschaeftsfuehrer (managing director): Mathias Stricker,
Sitz und Registergericht (register of companies): Muenchen HRB 162859