Bubbles in the Bathtub

The internet is abuzz with lots of new social networking and user-generated content sites and tools. Think wikipedia, digg.com, twitter, MySpace, YouTube and a multitude of similar sites. While user-generated content sites like wikipedia have obvious benefits (for example, a wikipedia page usually comes out at the top of almost every web search I run now and it's scary how often the articles contain exactly the information I am looking for), the same is not necessarily apparent of social-networking sites. However, just as with press releases, participation in social networking sites can be an effective means to reach new audiences with your message. In this case, the conservation of sea turtles and their habitats. In the end, the most effective thing we can do to conserve sea turtles is to educate the public. Currently most sea turtle information goes in to niche publications. Imagine the impact you could have getting the "sea turtle message" in front of a million eyeballs at a popular social networking site loaded with people that would otherwise never hear about sea turtles.

So, let's try a little experiment. A story came out yesterday in reference to a new publication by Annette Broderick et al. This story was dugg by a user at digg.com.

Visit the digg post and add your vote.

If we can push the number of diggs up high enough the story will show up on the digg home page and may be featured in their weekly podcast (not for the faint of heart, but with a whole other untapped audience).

Let's put the digg effect in play for sea turtles.