August Challenge Announcement

While there were obvious reasons for delaying the announcement of the May Challenge until it was about to be underway, there is every reason to give you plenty of time to prepare for the August Challenge...

The August Challenge will center around YouTube videos. YouTube is perhaps the fastest growing and among the most influential websites in the entire internet. Countless videos are watched by millions daily, and the best among them become sensations that travel the globe and change minds.

Your challenge for August is to make a YouTube video. There are but two requirements: that you (1) advocate peace in Iraq and (2) make some reference or mention of One Million Blogs for Peace. (You may mention other websites as well, or aspects of the peace movement, and of course give yourself the credit for creating the video!)

For the competition part of the challenge, videos cannot be posted on YouTube until August 1st. The winners will be determined by those who have the most views at the end of the day on August 30th. You may make multiple videos - as many as you want!

This should give you ample time - nearly two months - to come up with a subject, plot, and to create your YouTube video. And you need not think just in terms of traditional videos. Some of the most persuasive videos on YouTube have been made with still images and a song in the background. Or even just one stagnant image and a person's voice. Or a humble $15 webcam.

Be creative, be passionate, and express your views about the situation in Iraq. Inspire the masses!

Feel free to post questions or comments, especially if you need help with designing videos or other technical issues.

In the meantime, while you're working on that, I am trying to come up with more ideas for Virtual Rallies, taking into account the perspectives some of you have expressed in response to this week's Tuesday Topic. Stay tuned for announcements about those.

As always, please keep ideas for such rallies or other actions coming so we can make the best use of our ever-growing movement!

Please Act NOW in Virtual Rally #2!

Here's all you have to do to participate:

1. Click this link:
http://digg.com/political_opinion/Blogs_Unite_Against_Iraq_War
(opens new window)
2. Click digg it under the number next to the title of the article.
3. If prompted, register for Digg or login, and then repeat above steps.

Last time we fell just a little short, so it's very important for everyone to participate early and get all your friends on board! I have sent out reminder e-mails to all members subscribed to the e-mail list.

If we get around 100+ "diggs" in the next 24 hours, we will get on the front page of one of the 100 most visited websites in the world!

Thank you all for your support and participation! Let's make this happen!

Virtual Rally #2

Virtual Rally #2
Site:  digg.com
Goal:  Elevate OMBFP to front page of digg.com.
Mission:  Spread word about OMBFP to a wide audience.
Participant Actions:
(1) Register as a member of digg.com (11-15 April 2007)
[Register]
(2) "Digg" OMBFP article to be linked (Monday, 16 April 2007)
[link available Monday]

We're shooting for a Monday morning effort to catch the week on the upswing and hopefully ride the momentum all week long.

Also, OMBFP merchandise will be available this weekend on CafePress.com. Stay tuned for details! Thanks to the Guerrilla Blogger for a reminder to get going on this.

Thank You Everyone!

I would like to personally thank everyone for their tremendous outpouring of support for and participation in Virtual Rally #1!

We received 76 diggs in less than 24 hours.

By any prior estimation or anticipation of the way that Digg works, this would have been well more than enough to catapult our article to the front page. Unfortunately, despite its wide influence and credibility, Digg.com is also well-known for its lack of transparency and consistency in how stories get selected for the front page.

Several stories in our topic category made it to the front page with 60 diggs. Others made it with fewer, and at least one made it with 70.

Most baffling of all, the OMBFP article was not even given its full 24 hours. I checked it this morning with at least half an hour left in the 24 hours, and it had been taken down from the Upcoming Stories.

While we didn't meet this first goal, I think we can look at this as a trial run for the Virtual Rallies. We clearly came extremely close, and whether we were kept off the front page by pro-war people "burying" our story, Digg's unpredictable algorithm, or just bad luck, our ability to conduct these united demonstrations of support will only get better in the future. So we can make adjustments and move forward, and the movement is constantly gaining supporters all the while!

Please let me know of suggestions you have for both (1) improving the conducting of Virtual Rallies and (2) sites you think would be good for the staging of future Virtual Rallies. I already have a major suggestion for myself, which is to e-mail the whole list earlier rather than just the people who signed up as specific participants in this Rally! My haste to avoid sending many mass e-mails to the list seems misplaced, and the massive outpouring that came from the e-mail to the whole list (once I did send it, about halfway through the Rally) clearly indicated that most of you wanted to participate and were looking for a reminder.

I anticipate we will probably try something through Digg again, despite its fickle nature, especially since so many of us now have registered accounts there! However, I am very interested in branching out to other similar sites where a strong, committed showing can make an impact. Let me know what ideas you have and we can build this movement together!

Thank you all again for your efforts over the last 24 hours.

Virtual Rally #1 Coming Down to the Wire!

Please Digg now if you haven't already... it's going to be close and there are only a few hours left!

http://digg.com/political_opinion/One_Million_Blogs_for_Peace

Click digg it at the above link. Register and/or log-in as necessary.

And thanks to all who have helped already! Just a few more diggs should get us over the top...

Please Act NOW in Virtual Rally #1!

Here's all you have to do to participate:

1. Click this link:
http://digg.com/political_opinion/One_Million_Blogs_for_Peace (opens new window)
2. Click "digg" under the number next to the title of the article.
3. If prompted, register for Digg or login, and then repeat above steps.

If this is at all unclear to you or you would like help with this, please comment below or e-mail me. I would like to make this as easy and seamless as possible. I will also have direct links to the "digg" button on the OMBFP front page and Virtual Rally page.

If we get around 50+ "diggs" in the next 24 hours, we will get on the front page of one of the 100 most visited websites in the world!

Thank you all for your support and participation! Let's make this happen!

Virtual Rally #1

Virtual Rally #1
Site:  digg.com
Goal:  Elevate OMBFP to front page of digg.com.
Mission:  Spread word about OMBFP to a wide audience.
Participant Actions:
(1) Register as a member of digg.com (28 March - 3 April 2007)
[Register]
(2) "Digg" OMBFP article which will be linked (Wednesday, 4 April 2007)
[link available April 4th]

I am very pleased to announce Virtual Rally #1. As explained above, you may participate by registering as a digg.com user over the course of the next week. Then on Wednesday, April 4th, I will post the designated article about OMBFP, which will be linked for everyone to "digg" (vote for). With wide participation, it should be easy to reach our goal!

Please spread the word about this Virtual Rally! As with all of these, participants need not be part of OMBFP, nor do Bloggers for Peace need to participate in Virtual Rallies.

Virtual Rallies

I want to briefly discuss an upcoming aspect of One Million Blogs for Peace: Virtual Rallies.

This philosophy of Virtual Rallies for OMBFP will be to create an active presence on the web for the movement to accomplish certain aims. Early on, most of these aims will be to spread the word about the project. Later, the focus will be to demonstrate the size and breadth of pro-peace sentiment across combatant countries and the world.

You may be envisioning something like all entering a chat-room and chanting a text slogan. This is not exactly what I mean by a Virtual Rally. Rather, the concept is to use the simultaneous presence and agreement of many unique individuals at websites where this can make a meaningful impact.

A key example (and the likely first Virtual Rally point) is digg.com. This is a website that tracks news stories, videos, and other links of interest through a system of voting amongst registered members. The Virtual Rally would involve participants registering as digg.com users and then all voting for an OMBFP article within a short period of time, thus vaulting the article to the top of the page. This site (81st most visited site in the world, according to Alexa) carries enormous weight with the hearts and minds of internet users. By influencing such a site with a brief, dedicated impact, we can help spread the word and/or change opinions.

The Virtual Rallies will be the core point of action for One Million Blogs for Peace and one of the key ways we can make a real impact on peoples' opinions and, ultimately (hopefully), the tide of this war.

Notification of upcoming and active Virtual Rallies will be via e-mail to members, posting here, and likely a Virtual Rally subpage of OMBFP.

If you have suggestions for possible Virtual Rally ideas or sites, please don't hesitate to let me know!