Kutcher promised to donate 10,000 mosquito nets to the fight against malaria, if he would reach this goal. This fight will also get 1,000 more, from CNN, who promised to give that amount if they were defeated.

This was not Celebrity showdown. This was about giving the power to the people. Just like President Obama, Ashton has shown the world how easy it is to get people together with one goal, and use social media to reach it. This is about coming together to fight a common threat. This is about you and me.

But, what do you think happens next? Let me know!

Edit: I just had to add this screenshot:

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If my calculations are correct, Ashton will reach his goal by 8am GMT in the morning. Let’s see if I’m right on that one.

Don’t forget to vote in the Aftermath poll.

Edit: I though I’d add Ashton’s speech to the “citizens of the Interweb”.

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There is already a lot of coverage of this race around the web, especially since Ashton vouched to donate 10,000 nets to the fight against malaria. CNN matched his offer, but also promised to donate 1,000 nets if the are defeated.

This got me wondering: What happens after Ashton reaches the 1 million followers goal? Here are some possibilities:

1. He stops getting new followers and keeps the 1 million something followers he has.
   It was fun while it lasted, but goal achieved, so there’s nothing more he will do on this subject.
2. Followers stop following him and he drops back below the 1 million mark.
   A lot of people could have just followed him for the sake of the race, maybe thinking this is their way of contributing to the noble goal of fighting malaria. After that goal has been reached, they may not be interested in Mr Kutcher’s ranting anymore.
3. He may find something new to keep his followers or even set a higher goal.
   Yes, maybe he has a master plan, of which attaining these 1 million followers is just a preparing step. Maybe he has other plans for which he needed to get (and keep) the 1 million voices (Kutcher for president?).
4. He will drop this and find some new creative way to get the attention of the public drawn to himself
   … or to a non-profit organization. Either way, Ashton is known to draw attention to himself in unexpected ways. “I am a celebrity, but I’m still human and know how to have fun” is the message I get from him. He has the ability to come up with anything and to have the public focus on it, even if he would drop this whole Twitter thing after it’s done.

And what about CNN?

1. They keep all those new followers
   People may just keep them in the list. You never know when some news that interests me breaks.
2. They lose followers
   Same as with Ashton: They were more interested in the race than in the actual tweets. They don’t need to know of “World leaders arriving for Group of 20 economic summit in London” as it happens, so they stop following CNN.

Unless I missed something, there are no other possibilities for CNN after this race.

Let’s have some fun

Let’s run a small poll here. Who will be the first to drop back to or under 900,000 followers after this race? Please feel free to elaborate with a comment.
Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.

photo credit: Carol Esther

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Please save your work after a while to prevent data loss!

When you’re writing a blog post, especially if you’re been writing for a while, click on the “Save draft” button so now and then. Especially do this when you’re about to use an option that would require the use of some popup that would communicate back with your post editor, like the Media upload buttons (if you’re using Wordpress of course).

I had just written a long, pretty negative post, saved it about 15 minutes in, but continued writing for an hour. I wanted to finalize it by adding an image, but the media widget opened full screen instead of as a popup. The only way to get back to the post, was to press the Back button of my browser. This brought me back to the last save point. I just lost about an hour worth of writing after about 2 hours research.

Since I’m someone who sees signs of warning and tries to listen to them, I decided not to spend another hour rewriting the article.

photo credit: Dave Durden

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1. Landscaping

I noticed that some important articles were forced down by the chronological display of posts, so they didn’t attract the attention enough. I needed a way to “stick” those articles. The sticky option of Wordpress didn’t do it for me, because that would place the article on top, but I may have already written a follow up. I needed a way to feature certain articles.

I also know that having titles of articles available creates a better chance that visitors will click on them to view the article. This would be nice for the list of featured articles.

2. New brand

I’m re-branding my blog. I’m changing everything that has to do with the representation of the brand of the blog. A logo is being made, the site needed to be adjusted to look more professional

3. Fresh start, new look

I haven’t paid real attention to this blog for about a year. Now I’ve restarted blogging regularly, so, as an added motivator, I needed to change the look of the site. Starting fresh usually helps if your environment is also adjusted to the fresh start.

4. Planning monetization

I’m planning to monetize the blog from the start. I will try use a lot of direct sales ads, so my design needed to be so that these would be as non-intrusive as possible.

5. Simple and clean

I like simple and clean design. My previous design had some distracting features, which I grew to dislike. I’d rather have a simple design, where pictures create a nice balance of color.

My new theme

After looking around, I found this Magazine style theme by Mimbo. This theme fit all my criteria and is easy to install and manage.

For those who don’t know my previous theme, The Internet Archive has an older version of my blog you can look at.

Please let me know what you think of my new theme and approach.

photo credit: felishumanus

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Think about it: 1,000 comments to a post and you try to get some kind of discussion going… I’d rather pull someone apart, and have him in a less busy environment where we can get to know each other. So I create a group. Why a group? Because there are lots of other ways to connect and share information on Facebook than in a forum. That’s why I didn’t create my own forum (contrary to what I’m hearing out there).

In my introduction here in my blog, I think it was made clear from the beginning that this is MY OWN project. It’s not a replacement of Darren’s proposed forums, nor is this something Darren has any involvement in!

To introduce the group, I checked out some links in the comments of Darren’s posts to see if they could be of value to the group, or if they could really benefit from it. Those people I sent an email, inviting them to use the group, with a link to my introduction here in the blog, and to the group.

And YET there are people who are confused about the whole thing. Whose fault is that?

Is it my fault some people just SEE a 31DBBB logo and assume that this is the hot spot, without reading 2 lines down in the description that this is MINE, not Darren’s.

Again, to be clear (I will bold the text!):

THE 31DBBB GROUP IN FACEBOOK IS MY PERSONAL GROUP OF FELLOW 31DBBB PARTICIPANTS WHO WANT TO FORM STRONG PERSONAL CONNECTIONS WITH EACH OTHER. THE GROUP IS NOT (A REPLACEMENT OF) PROBLOGGER’S PROPOSED FORUMS.

Thanks Darren, for making me look bad! How I wish you had answered my inquiries days ago, instead of now, with people being confused and you not understanding what the purpose/benefit of my group was. Disappointing, all this… Very disappointing!

photo credit: hey old man

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Whenever someone follows me, I first check their Twitter home for the following:

• Are they engaged in conversations? Do you see them @replying to others?
• Do they have more tweets about their own blogs, products or services? If they do, it means that they primarily use Twitter to promote themselves.
• Do they regularly retweet? Do they regularly link to stuff they might think would interest their followers?
• Who are their friends? Are their friends people I would like as friends?

I do this to avoid being overwhelmed by a lot of advertisement. If I only get self-promotion in my friends time line, I might miss the serious tweets that could be of interest.

Those who “pass the test” will be followed by me in return. Those who don’t will only get a @reply from me, thanking them for following me.

Is it wrong of me to use this strategy? What’s your strategy? Why would you follow someone on Twitter?

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1. Ashton Kutcher vs CNN twitter race: the aftermath
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For yesterday’s challenge I created a list of some of my favorite lists posts from fellow participants, to spread some link love. While I was writing, I tried to think of ways to bring this group of publishers closer together. My answer: a Facebook group.

31DBBB Facebook group

The 31DBBB group is (for now) my personal Facebook group for fellow participants to come together to assist each other during and after the challenge. The idea is to create strong bonds, that can be beneficial to us all, even after the 31 day period.

This group is not about exposure to the blogosphere. It’s rather about exposure to the rest of the participants, in order to create longer lasting connections. Individual exposure to the rest of the world should be taken care of by each individual themselves, but the group could assist.

This is a closed group, meaning those who are not invited can sign up, but will need to be approved by someone in charge. For this process we will check the blog of the applicant to verify that there is evidence of participation, or at least some kind of reference to 31DBBB. Since it’s about exposure to each other, what he have to say to one another in this group is important, and not what we have to say to the world. Your being part of this group will be visible to whomever you chose, but the activities won’t.

Join now!

Yes, join this group now, if you’re one of the participants of the 31 Days Build a Better Blog challenge. Think of it: there’s more to gain than to lose.

If you’d rather be invited by me to the group, add me as friend to Facebook, with a reference to 31DBBB, and I’ll send you the invite.

Important note: This group is not (a replacement of) Darren’s proposed community for participants. This is my personal incentive.

Other note: I’m still learning to work Facebook groups, so please bare with me on getting this working properly.

Update: There seems to have been some confusion (???) about this.

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