But it's true. The blog is three days old and already averaging a thousand hits a day. Its founder, Maggie Ginsberg-Schutz, is one of my writers, and she began her journey (well, her public one anyway) to give voice to a silent epidemic in an article published in Madison Magazine in 2007. Then last year she worked with Domestic Abuse Intervention Services to find women who’d be willing to tell their stories publicly, which among other things threatens their safety. Last November we published her amazing article on seven local survivors.
Maggie didn’t stop there. She worked all winter to launch Violence Unsilenced, and for all you Internet smarties who know how to measure success in the blogosphere, this is the reaction to the site after 24 hours.
2,250 hits on violenceunsilenced.com
1,329 hits on okayfinedammit (where comments were closed)
106 comments
126 emails (not including the 44 between the designer and I)
51 mentions of the words 'violenceunsilenced' on Twitter -- (a fun illustration of this is to go to www.summize.com
10 direct messages on twitter (a secondary email, like facebook emails)
22 new twitter followers
9 Facebook messages
an instant Technorati rank of 7 right out of the gates (wicked good)
a request for an interview on blog talk radio next week
a request for a Q&A on some blog I can't think of the name of right now
a guy actually made a video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0wnxaSs4wZY
the editor of BlogNosh magazine requested a badge to put in rotation on her (megapopular) site for free
32 new survivor stories sitting in my inbox ready to publish
countless numbers of Diggs, Stumbles, and Google Reader shares (no way for me to track this)
#2 spot on Kirtsy.com for the day
Maggie has been writing a very popular blog from her home in rural southern Wisconsin for a few years, so her social networking universe is huge and paying off. Widely read blogs like Alltop and BlogNosh are noticing, but more importantly the word is spreading in an innovative way to reach a whole new audience of people who are touched by this, or who simply care.
Maggie knows viscerally how this kind of success turns your stomach when you think about it. It’s such a sad and frightening thing. But at the same time it’s beautiful and powerful, like the “Take Back the Night” marches designed in part to return the power abusers have deliberately taken away. And to begin the healing. And this writer/blogger Maggie who is not a social justice advocate but a journalist is using the power of words and now, the Internet, to try to heal deep wounds but even more importantly to prevent the first act of violence from ever happening. Take Back the Night 2.0.
You know when somebody like Sully, the guy who landed the plane in the Hudson, shies away from the word "hero" because through his lens he was just trying to help? That's Maggie. She's just trying to help. And so far she's had some terrific success.
2 comments:
Oh, GEEEEEEEZ.
Really, with the airplane thing? ;)
What I mean to say is you're sweet and I love you.
The awesome thing about the new blog is it has nothing to do with me. It doesn't feature my writing, but other people's. People who are braver than I, because they're putting it all on the line and I am not. You don't see my story up there (yet.) I'm in awe of the response from the community. I'm grateful for their guts.
Thank you for this.
I have a head cold. I tend toward the dramatic when I'm ill. But the point I was making is that every day hardworking, unassuming people accomplish remarkable things. You're one of 'em. And so are all the survivors who've had the courage to share their stories.
Post a Comment