Monday is "Blog Action Day"

As you probably know, Monday has been declared "Blog Action Day," where we who pontificate are encouraged to blog about the environment. I'm on board with that — talk to me for an hour and I'll have somehow managed to turn the conversation to plastic or China — and I love to see bloggers mobilized for political action. But there's something about the group organizing the effort that gives me the heebie jeebies.

From Wired:

As it turns out, Blog Action Day is less about a particular issue than it is about the blogosphere flexing its muscles, with professional help. Ta'eed is the general manager of Eden Creative Communities, a startup that hosts websites aimed at the artistic demographic. Ta'eed and cofounder Leo Baubata also contribute to blogs that provide resources for freelancers and tips on how to build steady readership, raising the question: How will Blog Action Day benefit Eden and its family of sites?

The article goes on to point out that, regardless, a large group of blogs posting about the same topic carries more weight than the general cacophony of the blogosphere, which is why I post on marriage equality during Freedom to Marry week and am generally supportive of the group efforts for political causes I believe in.

But the idea of a startup organizing an effort for a popular cause that will give them a lot of spillover traffic just creeps me out. To top it off, they e-mailed me a Blog Action Day Reminder, and it included a "what kind of blogger are you" quiz — just a "bit of fun," they say — that seemed more like a thinly veiled attempt at demographic profiling.

Of course, I'm still going to participate.