I think that I advocated an overly elaborate concept, involving a rotating gallery of portraits of cyber-dissidents who are currently incarcerated. At any rate, Julian was not enthusiastic; I had the impression that a root canal procedure would have been about as welcome as my adjurations and arm-waving.
But I digress.
In the meantime, Matt Turck and two talented programmers have come up with a free service that makes it very easy for nonprofit and philanthropic organizations to make web page ads available to their friends, partners, donors, and other well-wishers. It's called "Word of Blog," and it's beautifully simple.
If you are doing outreach on behalf of a mission-based organization, you can go to the Word of Blog web site and submit your collateral materials to be turned into a web page ad. You can also browse the ads for mission-based organizations that they've already created, in order to get a sense of the possibilities.
Naturally, I felt compelled to take Word of Blog for a spin before recommending it to others, so I selected the Idealist.Org ad to display on this blog. Idealist.Org (also known as Action Without Borders) is an organization that I admire very much for its use of information and communication technology to serve mission-based organizations; indeed, it's been on this blog's "Recommended Links" page from the very beginning.
Word of Blog can be a good entry point for supporters of a cause who want to experiment with online civic engagement on a modest scale. Moreover, this free service can be a wonderful way for a nonprofit or philanthropic organization to experiment with web site advertisements, and to find out how how their current or potential stakeholders respond. It's not a substitute for a sophisticated electronic outreach or fundraising campaign, but it can be a really good start.
Here are some Katrina-related ads that are currently available through Word of Blog:
nptech
