Spending the last few weeks just focussing on getting my business going has caused me to neglect my environmental and sustainability focus for a while. Even though I had writing a Blog Action Day post on my calendar I just never got around to it so I thought the least i could do is report on the success of the event.

Just so you know, October the 15th was Blog Action Day, a day devoted to blogging about the environment and highlighting global environmental issues to create awareness for the plight of our planet. Bloggers were called upon to break with their usual blogging schedule to take part by posting about the environment and in that way making the environment an issue at the top of the agenda on that particular day. It’s a great experiment in social networking and tackling societal issues via these channels, a topic I hope to write alot about very soon and one I have started applying some thinking and action to myself.

Measuring an initiative like Blog Action Day is difficult. In 2007 we asked bloggers to register their blogs and a rough count of RSS subscribers. It is worth remembering that RSS subscriber numbers are only one half of the readership of a blog. Many and in some cases all of a blog’s readership will simply be visitors to the site. The real reach of Blog Action Day is far greater than the number below.

20,603 Blog Participated

23,327 Blog Posts (Google Blog Search)

14,631,038 RSS Readers

source - http://blogactionday.org/

Bloggers in their tens of thousands came out in support, including some of the top 100 technorati listed blogs to make this an event to remember. Some of the top blogs writing on the issue were:

19 of Technorati’s Top 100 blogs

• 3. Boing Boing
• 6. LifeHacker
• 8. Mashable
• 10. Daily Kos
• 16. Problogger
• 17. Treehugger
• 18. Official Google Blog
• 20. Read/Write/Web
• 32. GigaOm
• 33. DoshDosh
• 35. LifeHack.org
• 36. CopyBlogger
• 37. The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)
• 39. Valleywag
• 44. Telegraph Blogs
• 70. ZenHabits
• 86. Explore Vox
• 87. Download Squad
• 98. Pronet Advertising

Something to bear in mind in future when you’re interested in getting a message out to thousands if not millions of people is the power of online social networking to give your cause an “epidemic” quality and allow it to spread like a virus.

The key with all these events though, like with Live Earth which took place not too long ago is to keep them coming and to keep it interesting. Giving people something worthwhile to participate in is one aspect, but keeping that action going is something which still seems to be illusive.

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