Today at 1pm we'll be livechatting with the bloggers who have gone to Bangladesh with Save the Children. Sian, Eva and Josie are there to highlight the work that the charity does, to put pressure on the government to provide more aid and to get the word out about how you can help.
There's a fantastic Flickr stream and you can read all the latest on this Save the Children Blogladesh page as well as advice on how to lend your support.
There have been loads of posts about the campaign and the efforts of those involved, both on blogs and on Twitter. There is also an interesting post on the Making It Up blog by Jax about whether this type of blog campaign will make a difference.
Some of the commenters to Jax's post think that taking these 3 bloggers to a foreign country to highlight the poverty and conditions is simply hype and more of a boon to the women's blogs than the plight of the children. I think that's a very shortsighted and narrow view.
Blogs and social media are an evolving media that are increasingly influencing traditional media. I used to work at the Times and so I've seen how trends online gather momentum, get onto the radar of newspaper editors and then get disseminated via print. TV and print look to the web more than ever to inform them "what people are talking about". And what people are talking about online in this community is this campaign.
I do think that Jax makes an important point: we have to keep evaluating how campaigns, charity efforts, and even basic blogging gets a message out and influences people. Does a Tweetup work? Who's talking about a cause and telling their friends? Can we measure the results?
And as I commented on Jax's post, Save the Children have done it the right way, by choosing 3 bloggers who are well-connected, highly prolific, influential within the blogosphere and committed to disseminating the message beyond it, via radio, newspaper, traditional media websites and more.
We're going to be talking to them LIVE today 1pm BST.
Set up a reminder now and join us to hear about the work they've been doing, discuss how they think it's making a difference and ask your questions.
See you there!
- Jennifer
