Be good. Be green.

  Palm Desert, Calif.-- Connecting people to causes does not have to be political or controversial. Sometimes it simply can be about doing good. That's the idea behind Good2gether Inc., which hopes to drive Internet traffic on regional newspapers' Web sites to local non-profit organizations. The way it works, explains Brian DelVecchio, a developer with the Cambridge, Mass.-based company, is a newspaper's site sports Good2gether's Connect2cause widget that imports relevant links to local non-profit groups and events that are tied to related news. For example, a national news story about drug development for diabetics on media Web sites could have links to the local American Diabetes Association chapter's upcoming School Walk for Diabetes. CEO Gregory McHale says newspapers "are hungry for local content," such as information about non-profit activities in their area. Good2gether helps them generate more traffic "while doing good," he says. McHale says both the San Francisco Chronicle and the Houston Chronicle will add Connect2cause widgets in April and he expects newspaper sites in Atlanta, Boston and Philadelphia to join later in Q2.

Across an ocean or two and south of the equator in Wellington, New Zealand, Celsias is building a community of green-minded individuals around its peer-reviewed blogs on the beta version of its Web site. According to Nicholas Lewis, CEO, the true goal of the blogs is to generate interest among readers in green-oriented projects that can be managed on the site. He says the goal is to link people with experience and expertise to those with enthusiasm for a given project. Although based in New Zealand and global in scope, Lewis says most of the site visitors and projects hail from the United States for such activities as pushing for warning labels on energy-wasting incandescent light bulbs to investigating the disappearance of honeybees in parts of the world. "Everything on the site is about action," Lewis says. Matthew Wright, chief operating officer, says the company intends to create a data warehouse of green-oriented products like solar panels where Celsias members can read or contribute reviews. While proponents for taking action to help lower human contribution to greenhouse gases said to be the main culprit behind climate change, Lewis says skeptics are welcome to contribute and comment on the blogs.