Blog Action Day: Coming to a Blog Near You

For those of us involved with blogging, Tweeting, and all various other forms of social media for social change, the nagging question is whether these tools really have the power to transform and augment communication and organizing for good, or whether we're dramatically overstating their power. Blog Action Day gives us one chance to lay our cards on the table and see what we can really do.

Blog Action Day began a few years ago when creative entrepreneurs Cyan and Collis Ta'eed decided to get together a group of bloggers to pick a day and all write about a similar topic of social importance. 20,000 bloggers later, the first Blog Action Day was a smashing success. A second year followed that success in similar fashion.

This year, the guys at BAD asked Change.org to take the reigns and help take it to the next level. This year, Change.org, in conjunction with lead blogging partners ranging from TMZ.com to Mashable and nonprofit partners like Oxfam, 350, and Greenpeace, will be hosting the third annual Blog Action Day.

On October 15th, bloggers from around the world and from every discipline will be writing posts about Climate Change. We chose climate change because it's an issue that effects every single person on this planet, that involves almost every other issue on the site. Most of all, we chose it because it's an issue that can only be addressed as a community, in which each and everyone of us - regardless of profession, ideology, nationality, or any other characteristic - takes individual responsibility.

With a little over two weeks to go before the event, already almost 2,000 bloggers with a combined audience of just over 8,000,000 people have signed up to participate. Perhaps coolest of all, those bloggers represent 98 countries.

Whether you blog a little, a lot, or not at all, you can sign up to participate by going to the Blog Action Day website. Check out the video below and get excited!