Join the Impact and the Web, part I: Planning a national protest online in eight days

One of the most hotly contested issues on November 4 had nothing to do with electing government officials, but whether or not same-sex couples should be allowed to marry. Such measures were on the ballot in three states, but California's Proposition 8 gained most of the national media spotlight. Its passage -- which resulted in same-sex couples losing the right to get married -- sparked a coordinated worldwide protest on November 15, a mere 11 days after Election Day. In some locations, there were tens of thousands of participants.

What's even more astounding is that effort to organize the rallies wasn't made until November 7. From the first call to action by national organizer Amy Balliett to smaller grassroots efforts involving individuals reaching out to friends, almost every part of the protest was planned online.

Amy Balliett spoke with The Industry Standard about the growth of the rallies from her initial blog post to the actual day.

The Industry Standard: How did you get involved with Join the Impact?

Amy Balliett: Basically, I issued a call to action on Friday, November 7th on a blog I started that day.

That's incredible. Did you ever think it would grow as large as it did?

No. It's days after the protest, and I'm still not getting back to normal. Everything has been in this constant state of movement since that day, and we have so many more things that we want to do now.

How did Wetpaint get involved?

[Wetpaint] called me on Monday the tenth and said, "We have this tool that is made for what you are doing. Can we offer you our services?" Everything that has happened with Join the Impact has been donated. When our server crashed Wednesday night, Hostdango.com stepped in and provided new server space.

How long did it take to create the Web site?

Fifteen minutes. It's a WordPress blog, so I grabbed a theme and quickly put it up there.

What online tools did you use to get the word out? Facebook? Twitter? Email? Blogs?

Every social network that exists somehow helped us, unless there are some out there we aren't aware of: Facebook, Gay.com, blogs, Twitter, MySpace, Friendster, SMS blasts, email blasts... we used every tool in our bag of tricks to get the word out.

What responses did you see online with the methods you used? Was everything positive?

No, no. You know that you are starting to make an impact when people seek you out to write angry things. We've had a lot of people write very angry things on the blog, and comments are moderated very carefully. Our mission statement says that fingerpointing, scapegoating, and hate language, on either side of the debate, won't be tolerated, and an email goes out letting the individual know why the comment won't be posted, giving them the opportunity to rewrite it.

Do you think that your rally could have been as successful as it was without the use of online tools?

Absolutely not. I think it's impossible to plan someting in a week without having a fast means of communication with every person involved.

Do you have projections for the total turnout on Saturday across all the rallies?

Actually, 10 other countries were involved, and early estimates have totals of at least one million people involved in 300 cities.

Does Join the Impact have any future plans?

We have a lot planned. Day without a Gay is already being promoted online, but we want to do more than national protests and sending messages to the government. We want to send positive messages to the communites around us. We are fighting for Human Rights, and our goal is to do that beyond the LGBT community. In conjunction with sending messages, we want to show the world how caring and giving our community is.

Part II of Join the Impact and