Myspace has been trying to rebrand itself as an entertainment hub, and one of the ways it has been trying to fight off dropping traffic is with celebrity “hijacks,” announced in December.

Myspace Hijacks allow celebrities to take over Myspace, and showcase the things that they like. Myspace started the concept with the Black Eyed Peas. Now, it is Victoria Secret supermodel (and actor Orlando Bloom’s wife) Miranda Kerr, who has hijacked Myspace with a focus on Earth Hour.

“Myspace was the very first social network to come on board for Earth Hour back in 2007,” said Andy Ridley, Co-Founder and Executive Director of Earth Hour. “Fast forward to 2011 and social media has become critical to the success of our global event, so much so that the very crux of our Beyond the Hour platform has social media at its very core. I know that Miranda will be encouraging people around the world to go beyond the hour – and I’ve no doubt that we’ll see that challenge met by the passionate Myspace community.”

“As the global ambassador for Earth Hour this year I’m excited to be in a position to reach out to the Myspace audience for such an important cause,” said Kerr. “It will be fun to share the things I love with such a huge global community as well as this year encouraging as many people as possible to go ‘beyond the hour’ and adopt even more sustainability practices in their everyday lives.”

It is important to note that despite Myspace’s declining traffic, the site does still attract millions of users.

“Simple things like unplugging appliances when not in use, turning lights off and using candles instead, buying products packaged in recyclable material are all ways in which we can reduce the impact on our planet.  Little things we do as a community or as individuals make a difference,” she added.

Noble causes aside, Myspace will continue to focus on celebrities and entertainment to keep people interested in the site in the Facebook age. Music has long been one of Myspace’s strongest points, but the future is uncertain there. While they did release some tools for musicians in December, and Myspace Music did partner with Songtrust last month, news also came out that President Courtney Holt was stepping down. MySpace’s director of business development, Rita Garg, went to Twitter as well. In January, Myspace even said News Corp. was considering “a number of possibilities including a sale, a merger, and a spinout.”

As far as Earth Hour, there is also an iPhone app for it too.

If you forgot, Earth Hour started in Sydney, Australia when in 2007 millions flipped off the lights for one hour.  A sustainability movement was launched out of that action and now it has become a global initiative.  Earth Hour is promoted by the WWF (World Wildlife Fund in the U.S. and Canada, World Wide Fund for Nature everywhere else).  The new campaign this year is called “60+” and refers to the mission to extend eco-friendly action for longer than 60 minutes.  From earthhour.wwf.sg:

“This year Earth Hour will become Earth Hour + seeking action not just for 1 hour, but commitment to ongoing change. We want to capture what is being done, the change that is taking place in our world and allow these actions to inspire more action.”

With this goal in mind, the WWF has launched a new iPhone app.  It is called “60+” and is available right now at the app store.

The app has facts and tips for conscious living, but it mainly functions as a tool for check-ins.  No, not places but activities.  Users can check-in when they ride a bike to work or fix a leaky faucet.  Utilizing the fact that everyone loves a game, they have also included badges and achievements in the app.  You can even show your friends how much you love the planet with full Twitter integration to share check-ins.

Also available for your perusal is beyondthehour.org, where people post pledges that become little gray squares to be clicked.  Once clicked, you have the option to share the pledges via Facebook and Twitter.  I wonder if the page uses more energy to display than other pages?

Earth Hour is this Saturday, March 26th at 8:30 pm.

 Black Google Israel

This would have been okay in the past; old CRT monitors use up more energy when displaying white space than black.  But when LCDs are involved, the reverse is true, and flat screens dominate most markets.  This should be no less the case in Israel, which has (at least) as many tech goodies as the U.S.

So it’s in Israel that Google made its mistake of supporting Earth Hour with a black homepage.  America’s Earth Hour is scheduled to start this Friday at 8 PM (according to everyone’s local time); it should be interesting to see if Google.com goes dark in preparation.

As Loren Baker notes, Google’s put on a black screen at least once before in a nod to Lights Out San Francisco.  Other mildly silly environmental gestures have also been made, but those tended to be goofy in the "drop in a bucket" sense, not this counterproductive one.

We’ve not yet heard about any marches on Mountain View, but the Earth Hour development has to be at least mildly frustrating to some people, and should embarrass Google, too.