The State of Planet Atheism: May 2007

And now for something completely different: the first of a periodic (monthly, probably) series of posts about the evolution of Planet Atheism, the world's favorite aggregator of atheism-related blogs. :)

Some facts, first:

• Planet Atheism is a little more than 4 months old (it was "born" on January 9, 2007).


• PA aggregates, as of this moment, 68 member blogs.


• PA gets slightly more than 200 visitors each day. That number is slowly rising.


• Another 100 or so individuals read PA through the RSS feed. Again, the number is slowly increasing.

In other words, by having your blog in Planet Atheism, you increase your potential readership by about 300 (and rising).

An implication of the above is that, if you're a member, then, by helping promote PA, you are also helping your blog (and those of the other members) as well. Those extra 300 daily readers could easily become 3000, and more. And, indirectly, you're also helping the cause of atheism and humanism, by "spreading the word" about both the aggregator and its member blogs, which is always a good thing. The more people see what we are like, the more they will stop seeing us as immoral monsters against whom any bigotry is justified.

How to help, then? Many of you are probably helping already, judging from the hits PA gets from many of the member blogs. A few suggestions:

• Add a permanent link to PA on your blog's sidebar


• Mention PA in a post (many of you already did this when joining, and it has helped a lot)


• Tell other people about PA ("did you know of this convenient place to read a bunch of interesting blogs about atheism and humanism?", or "we atheists aren't the monsters you believe we are. Want to know what we're really like? Here's a nice place to start...")


• Know of a great atheism-related blog that isn't aggregated? Suggest to the author that he/she joins!


• Unleash the power of social bookmarking: add PA to your del.icio.us bookmarks, join the PA community on MyBlogLog, vote for PA (by installing the toolbar, and clicking on "I like it" on it) on StumbleUpon, and so on.

Note that you can do any or all of those even without being a member. Maybe you're fascinated with the subject, but don't actually have a blog about atheism / humanism. Well, you can still help, by doing the above. All the member blogs will appreciate the increased readership, and the greater number of comments it brings. More readers should also eventually mean more member blogs, which will make PA even more interesting.

I've said it before, but I would have created PA even if I was its only reader. It's a wonderful site, a great read each morning, with guaranteed fascinating posts and essays every day. I can say that without being a conceited jerk, because most of the posts aren't mine. :)