Bloggers for Autism Awareness

Note: If you blog about autism and would like your blog to be considered email me here. Please include your blog title, address and a blurb about your blog.

Looking for widgets and badges? Go here.

In March of 2008 I put out the call: Join me in blogging for autism awareness. The response was incredible, by the end of April 153 bloggers joined forces.

During that month many of us met and made friends. We formed a community. Our efforts came to the attention of David Mastio, editor of BlogNetNews.com. He proposed a new section specific to autism on his site that could showcase our community of bloggers and keep us connected all year long. Not only that, the revenue from the top ad spot would go to a charity of our choice.

His offer was accepted.

How does this work?

BlogNetNews.com will be created a section called ‘Autism.’ In this section bloggers blogging about autism will show up. It’s different than a blogroll. This list shows a headline, a blurb and blog title. If a reader wants to continue, they’ll click on the headline and be directed back to the post on the originating blog.

All participating blogs’ posts will integrate like stories in a section. The most recent ones will be listed on top. Blog titles will be listed at the right. The posts are imported through RSS feeds.

You can view the section here. (LINK)

How do I get my blog listed?

If you blog about autism — whether you’re a parent of an autistic child, a person who has autism, a professional or someone who is studying and blogging about autism – you can request to be added. You can do this by commenting below or by email.

Please provide the link to your blog, title and a description.

For those already blogging for autism awareness this past April, your blogs are included.

How often do I have to blog specifically about autism to be included?

Blogging for autism awareness in April was intense. Many bloggers posted daily and others almost daily. This high-level of intensity all year long is not expected.

To quote a previous post:

“… Autism is one of those defining things that shape the experiences of my family. So whether I’m writing about my middle-of-the-night tummy bug episode with my youngest or about coming to terms with being a parent of an autistic child, or bragging about my oldest son’s accomplishments I’m still raising awareness about autism.

Some days we look and behave just like every other family, and on other days there’s a little something extra-special going on. Either way, it’s a window into our world.”

If you feel that statement encompasses your blog, I’d love to include you. However know that you can opt out at any time with an email to me or the editor of BlogNetNews.com. (LINK)

So what are the benefits of participating?

Plain and simple: exposure. BlogNetNews.com has a large viewership. Extending our community, beyond our current badge and blogroll, to include the BlogNetNews.com’s autism section, would put the community’s stories in front of hundreds of thousands of readers on a regular basis. Imagine, after a year, how many people would understand autism beyond just the word.

What we started out to do in April can continue on.

Also there are some tools that could be of benefit too. BlogNetNews.com has badges that can be used to show the latest autism blog headlines or to show posts with specific keywords. For example: If you’d like to show all posts that have the word Asperger’s in it on your site, you can do that using the BlogNetNews.com’s tools.

So let’s review: Blogs will be easier to find, posts will be easier to scan and jump over to, new visitors will read your blog, and there will be some really cool new tools to help promote the community.

Did I miss anything?

Oh yeah, in doing this we’ll also be raising money for autism too.

So how does this raise money again?

The editor of BlogNetNews.com has devoted one of the top ad spots in the section to raise money for autism.

That’s right. Our blogging will help raise money for autism. We don’t have to do anything different, just keep on blogging.

Who would benefit from the money raised? I don’t know. That’s an answer we should come up with as a community.

My hope is that we can agree on one beneficiary for the most impact – but I also know this could be a sticky point. I don’t want anyone to feel excluded – each voice counts. In the case we can’t come up with a general consensus on where the money should go – Mastio has agreed we can split it between two beneficiaries of our choosing.