Yakov’s Neighborhood

It's clear to me that Voxers are some of the most environmentally conscious and creative people out there, which is why I wanted to tell you about Six Apart's “Green by Design” contest. All you have to do to enter is create a Green Badge with an earth-friendly design and/or message.

In April, I told you about a few Green Badges we created for your blogs, and said that when the badges reached 100,000 impressions across the blogosphere, Six Apart would donate $1000 to The Climate Project. Well, as of June 1st, we surpassed that goal by nearly two million impressions. Needless to say, a check is in the mail!

When we realized how many of you were adopting the Green Badges, we thought it would be cool if we came up with a contest that allowed you to put your creativity to good use and make your own Green Badges.

Like the previous badges, the winning badge will link to the One Million Acts of Green brought to you by Cisco website. One Million Acts of Green is a collaborative environmental campaign encouraging everyone to go green. One act at a time. The goal? One million acts of green because, as we all know, we’re more powerful together than we can ever be apart.

Each weekly winner will also receive a one-year subscription to MailStopper, a junk mail stopper service provided by Tonic. Plus, we will donate $150 to a charity in the winner’s name. (For a list of charitable organizations the winner can choose to donate to, please see the contest rules.)

Two runner-ups each week will receive an honorable mention, as well as a one-year subscription to MailStopper.

Plus, when the badges receive a million impressions (and we know they will!), Six Apart will donate another $1000 to The Climate Project.

Here’s what you need to know in order to submit your design:

• The Submission must include a positive environmental message.
• The Submission must be in the JPEG file format.
• The Submission must be 160 x 90 pixels in size at a resolution of 72 dpi.
• The maximum file size of the Submission is 500 kilobytes.
• The Submission must be accompanied by an email address.
  
• The Submission and each element thereof must be the original work of Participant.

Please email your entry to badgecontest@sixapart.com and don't forget to include your Vox user name and your email address.

There's still time to get your entry in for this week's judging! We're accepting entries until end of day on Friday. If you aren't able to submit by this Friday, don't worry: There's another week left in the contest. The deadline for submissions is June 25, 2009 at 11:59:59 p.m. Pacific Time. Winners will be announced on Everything TypePad; however, if a Voxer wins, we'll also announce it here, of course.

View all contest rules here.

GOOD LUCK!

~daisy

Looking for a way to show the world how much you love our planet? A Green Theme from One Million Acts of Green brought to you by Cisco is the perfect way to let your readers know just how eco-friendly you are.

One Million Acts of Green is a collaborative environmental campaign encouraging everyone to go green one act at a time. The goal? One million acts of green. Because, as we all know, we’re more powerful together than we can ever be apart. Want to get involved? After you add a new Green Theme to your blog, visit the One Million Acts of Green website and record your Acts of Green. Whether you turn the lights off when they're not in use, carpool to school/work, or just get your friends to start recording their Acts of Green, every single act makes a difference.

What are you waiting for? Visit the Design Area to green your Vox blog today!

For the last two and a half years, we've been providing you with two daily prompts to inspire you when your fingers are frozen on the keyboard: The QotD and Vox Hunt.

We've noticed in the past year or so that while most of you love to answer the Question of the Day, fewer and fewer of you have been responding to the daily Vox Hunts. In fact, it seemed that, if anything, the Vox Hunt was taking away from the Question of the Day, rather than complementing it, as intended. Because of that, we've made the tough decision to remove Vox Hunt and focus solely on the Question of the Day.

We understand that change of any kind is never easy, but rest assured: while Vox Hunt is going away, the ideas and challenge associated with Vox Hunts will still remain, only now you'll find them within the QotD. From time to time, QotDs will ask you questions that encourage you to add media associated with your answer (photos, music, videso), just like the Vox Hunt did.

We hope that by combining the two, we will succeed in inspiring even more people to answer the QotD and in bringing the Vox community together by prompting you to share your vast array of opinions and stories (and the media associated with them) on similar topics.

Today is the last day for Vox Hunt, so take a moment to say goodbye by showing us whatever it is that makes you happy.

If you have any questions or thoughts about this... or anything, you can always send me a message.

Until next time...

daisy

Tonight, from 10:00 p.m. PT - 10:30 p.m. PT (5:00 - 5:30 a.m. UTC/GMT), we will be taking Vox offline for maintenance. During this time, you will not be able to post to Vox or browse other Vox blogs.

We understand that any downtime is disruptive, and we sincerely apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.

We will be posting updates to our status site, status.sixapart.com.

Thanks for your patience. We'll do our best to make it quick and painless!

~daisy, Team Vox

Earth Day was founded to inspire awareness and appreciation for our environment, and while today might be the official Earth Day, at Vox, we believe that every day is new opportunity to help make our planet clean and healthy. That’s why we’ve partnered with Cisco to promote the One Million Acts of Green website.

One Million Acts of Green is a collaborative environmental campaign encouraging everyone to go green one act at a time. The goal? One million acts of green. Because, as we all know, we’re more powerful together than we can ever be apart.

That’s where you come in. We’ve come up with a few easy ways to inspire you to help the planet because we truly believe that every act of green makes a difference.

Here’s how you can do your part:

1. Adopt a Green Badge for Your Blog & We Will Donate $1000 to The Climate Project

We created four green badges for you to choose from (you can see one of them on the right). Each badge links to the One Million Acts of Green, brought to you by Cisco website. By putting a badge on your blog, you’ll not only be spreading the message of the importance of going green, you’ll be participating in an environmental campaign that will impact the world forever.

Plus, when the badges receive 100,000 impressions across the blogosphere, Vox's parent company, Six Apart, will donate $1000 to The Climate Project.

Visit Everything TypePad to learn how to add a Green Badge to your Vox blog.

2. Answer today’s QotD

We want to know: How could you better “green” your life? What’s holding you back?

Taking the time to share what you're already doing, as well as thinking about what you could do better going forward, will hopefully be not only an inspiration to you, but to everyone in your neighborhood.

Thank you for every act of green you perform on a daily basis to make this world a better place. Because when we all do one act, we act as one, and help the planet. And that is what today, and every day, should be about.

It seems in life we're quick to hand out praise to those around us, but how often do we take a few moments to acknowledge our own accomplishments and successes? Well now's your chance to reflect on your moments of greatness, pat yourself on the back, and share your story with everyone in your neighborhood!

Nature Made teamed up with Vox to help us celebrate the greatness in all of you. Answer yesterday and today's QotD to share your story.

After you’ve answered the QotD, you can submit your story of greatness at NatureMade.com and enter to win $1000 and a spot in the Nature Made “Fuel Your Greatness” documentary.

Keep your eyes peeled because we'll be asking you to share more stories about the things you do that make the world a better place.

Since 2003, over 100,000 gamers worldwide have banded together and raised over 3.5 million dollars in donations of toys, games, books, and cash to help sick kids in hospitals across the world. This amazing outpour of generosity is made possibly by Child's Play, a community based charity grown and nurtured from the gaming culture and industry.

This year Vox and Six Apart Media have teamed up with gamerDNA.com to help spread cheer to children in hospitals across the world. You can help out too. All you have to do is take a quiz and put the results badge on your Vox blog.

Here's how it works:

By taking the quiz, you're representing Vox in a contest to raise money for charity. After you take the quiz, you'll be given a badge to place on your Vox blog, as well as any other places you may live on the web (social networks, forums, etc.). The community with the most badges at the end of the month wins! The winning community will get to choose a Children's Hospital that gamerDNA will give 6 Nintendo DSs and games to.

Participating is easy, and could really change the life of a child. All you have to do is answer a few fun questions about your gaming habits, or if you don't want to take the quiz, you can donate directly to Child's Play via the "ChipIn!" widget on the gamerDNA quiz page.

When Voxers and gamers give back, it makes a difference. Thank you for participating.

The future belongs to those who give the next generation reason for hope.
— Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

We are encouraging bloggers everywhere to support One Laptop Per Child’s Give One Get One program. One Laptop Per Child’s mission is to help the world’s poorest kids to know, learn, and understand. OLPC provides a green, low-cost laptop that’s tough enough to withstand a child’s curiosity, and is full of educational content and software to help them connect to the world around them. Being connected to the web is something we feel passionate about at Six Apart, and being connected can fuel young imaginations for a bigger tomorrow.

Join us and thousands of others and get involved today:

    * Give One, Get One. You can buy a laptop for a child around the world and for a child near you with the Give One, Get One program. Purchase online at amazon.com/xo.

    * Spread the word. Learn more about OLPC and Give One, Get One and write about it. Your voice will help encourage others. Here are some great videos to share with your audience.

Thanks, in advance, for all of your support. Six Apart is proud to help bloggers continue to change the world. 

As we mentioned in early October, hundreds of bloggers engaged in the 2nd annual DonorsChoose.org Blogger Challenge, a friendly competition during the month of October to see who could raise the most money for or reach the most kids in low-income public schools.

The results of the competition are in! Once again, Sarah Bunting of Tomato Nation blew every other blogger out of the classroom by raising $111,352, and helping over 19,577 students. Sarah demonstrated the power of blogging by producing a campaign ad that asked her readers to vote with their wallets and it worked. Over the course of October, 1,162 donors "voted" and donated.

As the sponsor of the prize for the bloggers who reach the most kids, Six Apart would like to give a shout out to Sarah and the bloggers in each category who reached the most students.

(This is our San Francisco team. Our New York, Paris and Japan team send their thanks also!)

Nearly twice as many bloggers attracted 50% more donors than last year, making the competition fiercer than ever. But leaders emerged in each category, and we'd like to acknowledge their fine efforts.

In the Tech Blog category, Fred Wilson's AVC Blog reached 4,454 students.

In the Science Blog category, David Ng and Benjamin Cohen's The World's Fair blog reached 1,780 students.

In the Topical/Local Blog category, Ralph Alswang Photography reached 522 students.

In the Mommy Blog and BlogHer category, Alice of Finslippy reached 1,676 students.

In the Knitting Blog category, Rose-Kim Knits reached 597 students.

In the Music Blog category, music teacher Walt Ribeiro reached 910 kids.

In the Sports Blog category, Sports Crackle Pop reached 465 kids.

Along with our thanks and congratulations, each winner will receive some choice schwag from our team at Six Apart.

As the creator of three leading blog platforms - Vox, TypePad and Movable Type - and the provider of social media services and advertising solutions, we are thrilled to participate in an event that raises awareness about the power and influence blogging can have, while also raising money for a very worthwhile cause: The future bloggers of America!

Thanks again to everyone who participated.

Just a reminder that Vox's 2nd birthday party is tonight at the Six Apart Headquarters. Please join us for drinks, snacks, music, and good times. It's also Movable Type's 7th Birthday and TypePad's 5th, so it's sure to be a fun group of staff, bloggers, and friends.

The party starts tonight, Thursday, October 30th, at 6 p.m. and ends at 9 p.m. Six Apart is located at 548 4th Street (between Bryant and Brannan) in San Francisco.

If you can't make it (boo!), be sure to visit our Anniversary Page and share your favorite Vox stories with us there.

Hope to see you in a few hours. Cheers!

~daisy