The ides of October has come and gone, and the Blog Action Day team’s wrap-up e-mail called the event an “unprecedented success.” Considering there were 23,327 blog posts and Blog Action Day was the top Technorati search term and tag for the day, I can’t argue!

Here at Eastwick, we were bringing in some pretty hefty numbers, too, starting with one hundred – One hundred percent of Eastwick bloggers posted on Blog Action Day. It was truly amazing to see how an entire agency of extremely busy people could come together for such a worthy cause (and it didn’t hurt our analytics, either)!

However, this is old news for Eastwick’s more avid blog readers. So, to balance out the old with some new, I’m pleased to report that because of the large number of pageviews accumulated over the past month (if you need more background information on Eastwick’s Blog Action Month project, check here), a very generous donation has been made to the National Wildlife Federation. Congrats again to our exceptional team of bloggers and our dedicated readers.

We all know that the blogosphere can be used for good as well as evil, but I sincerely hope that initiatives such as this one inspire other companies, as well as individuals, to keep at it. We ARE making a difference!

Blog Action Day, Eastwick, National Wildlife Federation, Technorati

“We don’t need more walls of separation between nations and peoples. We know they can’t protect us from global challenges like AIDS or terrorism or global warming. We need instead, more connections, more bridges of understanding and shared responsibility.” -Mary Robinson, first female President of Ireland.

Although my guess is that Robinson didn’t realize how her words apply to what we call “Web 2.0,” it truly does. Case in point: I found this quote on Sustainable Community Action, a wiki dedicated to helping the average person or community group learn and share information about sustainability.

However, wikis aren’t the only online trend helping to spread the environmental word. Concerned citizens are also utilizing social networks, another very popular online trend. I’ve written about two or three specific networks, but overall, the end results have spoken for themselves. Tons of money has been raised, which means that lots of needy nouns (people, places and things) have been helped, which means that we as Internet users are making a difference. Math is the bane of my existence, but for arguments sake I shall use geometry’s Transitive Property to prove my point. If a = b and b = c, then a = c. Voila!

Then there are blogs. I’ve written about Eastwick’s participation in Blog Action Day today, so I won’t repeat myself too much here, but with 15,861 registered blogs and a combined RSS reach of 12,697,713, I’m really excited to see the overall impact it’ll have.

But, to play the devil’s advocate for a minute, I know that some people think bloggers have the tendency to be conceited and that one post is no substitute for staging a protest or sending an angry letter to Congress. Does participating in Blog Action Day really mean that you should be able to post one blog and then sleep soundly the other 364 days? No, but I don’t think that is what we’re trying to do. It’s about giving those who do want to make a difference a starting point and a place to collaborate. It’s about raising money for a worthwhile charity. And it’s about taking a moment of virtual silence by taking a small amount of time out of a busy day to remind the world, as well as ourselves, that helping the environment is important.

Blog Action Day, Congress, Eastwick, Ireland, Mary Robinson, Sustainable Community Action, wiki