Do good while staying lazy with Tuggl

​One of the great things about the Denver/Boulder area (especially the Boulder bit of that) is how many do-gooders we have here. Seriously, everywhere you look, there's someone trying to make the world a better place, from those Greenpeace panhandlers (sorry, fundraisers) perched on every corner downtown to the abundance of non-profits that spring up here. And don't forget those people (like me) who are far too lazy to actually do anything, but would like to, you know, help out as long as we don't have to do much other than maybe choose to give our money to businesses that help the community and... stuff. But only if finding those businesses is really, really easy.

Enter Tuggl.

This oddly named company is a web venture that rates companies on both quality as a business (customer service, price, etc.) and their contribution to the community via nonprofit organizations (dollars donated, pro-bono work offered). Then, Tuggl offers a composite rating of the two, and voila -- an instant, effortless, at-a-glance way to know whether you're giving your money to the business equivalent of Gandhi or Attila the Hun.

Naturally, Tuggl leverage the tenets of Web 2.0 to make all this happen. Users (that's people like me, except the ones that can be bothered to get off their ass and submit) review businesses in the customer categories, while the nonprofit people offer the data on the goody-goody side. Then the automagical software behind the website does the rest, giving us a handy guide to who's good for the community and who's an asshole.

Naturally, such an inherently social venture is tied into all the big social media avenues. In addition to the Tuggl website, where the main action is, you can also become a fan on Facebook and follow the site on Twitter, where staffers tweet contests and updates. And to entice you to do good, they are currently bribing you to submit reviews and tweet about them for a chance to win $100 gift cards, which is nice. Drop some snark about your terrible service somewhere and get $100? Awesome....