Saturday, November 22, 2008

Battle of the Blogs Sweeping the County!!!

I was honored when Griff first agreed to let me blog here. By then, for some time, the Cincinnati Blog had been--well, the Cincinnati blog. And the chance to join up with Jack (who I already knew of) and Julie (who's become one heck of a blogger) was too good an opportunity to pass up.

This week, though, my honor has turned to pride. I'm proud to be part of this blog in particular, and the Cincinnati blogosphere in general. What started out as just a simple post hoping to raise money for the Freestore Foodbank has (with no small amount of help from the Beacon) swept across the blogosphere like a California wildfire.


The Bearman is contributing based on blogs that link to his archives. Kate the Great has a terrific post on why you should give. Julie, who just became an affiliate to Greater Cincinnati Independents (a coalition of local restaurants) is donating her referral fees to the Freestore through the end of the year. Local politicians have gotten into the Battle, with HamCo Commissioner David Pepper and GOP Chair Alex Triantafilou joining the fray. The media is even starting to pay attention: see CityBeat (attempting to compete and cover the story at once) and WCPO.

The Freestore Foodbank seems excited by the competition, and has even created a way to help track the winner. The Freestore has created special url's (don't ask me how they work, I just know they do) that will tell them where their incoming hits are coming from. I've updated our links. So you can click on this link, or any other Freestore Foodbank link in the last few posts, and the Cincinnati Blog will get "credit" for the contribution in the Battle.

Too often, the blogosphere is just a consortium of echo chambers. We here at the Cincinnati Blog tend to talk to the center-left; Julie talks to food afficionados; Alex T. talks to GOP members; the Dean talks to the hopelessly confused; you get the picture. The Battle of the Blogs showcases the real power of the internet in the twenty-first century: the power to pull people together from across political, economic, and demographic boundaries to work for a common cause.

It's kind of humbling to be a part of.

And...if you need one more, selfish reason to donate to the Freestore: charitable donations are a great way to reduce your 2008 tax liability.

Local bloggers who haven't posted yet: I'm gonna call more of you out on Monday. (5chw4r7z, where are you?)

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