First off, a huge, ginormous thank you to everyone who participated, spread the word, learned something, and shared that knowledge! I would especially like to acknowledge Tammie Lister and Pelf Nyok. Tammie has designed the site for the past three years and Pelf stepped up this year to help me manage the event, helping to get even more engagement and making things fun.

Second off, let’s do the numbers…

As in the past two years it is difficult to get a specific count on how many people Went Pink, however with our sign-up form, sites like Technorati and Google’s Blog Search, and social networking sites like Bebo keeping track of theme users I feel confident with the following number:

~15,700

Can I get a “Hells yeah!”

There are three main reasons for such a jump in support this year: 1) this is the third year so we’ve built up some momentum, 2) over the past 3 years (this one included) many designers have created easy-to-apply themes lowering the level of entry for more people, and 3) Twitter; word spreads fast there.

What Else Happened?

Our Facebook Cause garnered 17,508 new members during the month of October 2008. And via that cause we raised $680! That may not seem like a lot of money, but again the purpose of this event is not primarily to raise money.

On a related note, I am slightly annoyed at Susan G. Komen. They redesigned their site sometime after the first week in October and broke the link to our donation page on their site. I didn’t find out about this until a few days ago so that aspect of the event turned out to be a bust. My apologies for that. Next year I will keep better track of things like that.

You

Pink for October is people! I am not suggesting we make Soylent Pink, but without you this event goes nowhere. I know that sounds obvious, but I want you to understand my appreciation for you. Thank you.

A big thank you also to the seven people who shared their story this month. Each story was an example of how Breast Cancer has impacted someone’s life and in turn how they view the world. This is an important aspect of understanding diseases; there are real people at the other end of those statistics.

What Now?

Pink for October only runs for the month of October each year. Already sites are reverting back to their original designs, but obviously Breast Cancer doesn’t follow a calendar.

There are lots of ways to stay involved for the next 11 months. In a way, too many to list and not all of them are for everyone. But however you stay involved (or don’t because we all lead busy lives) you now have 304 days before I start bugging you about Going Pink for October again.