Scientists confirmed the other day what most of us instinctively knew - that we humans are to blame for global warming. The United Nations panel of 2500 scientists representing 130 countries said there is a 90% certainty that our use of fossil fuels since the start of the industrial revolution in 1750 is contributing to climate change.

The problem seems so immense that it is hard to see how any one individual can make a difference. But there is a way... and it starts with the humble lightbulb.

Energy Saving Lightbulbs (or Compact Flourescent Lightbulbs as they are known in the USA) last 8-10 times longer than regular bulbs, use about 75% less energy, and produce 90% less heat while delivering more light per Watt. For example, a 25 Watt Energy Saving Lightbulb provides the same amount of light as a 100 Watt regular bulb.

Their lower energy requirements means that they reduce the amount of electricity used, which in turn reduces the amount of coal and oil burnt in power stations around the world, and therefore the amount of greenhouse gas (and mercury) pumped into the atmosphere.

Oh, and did we mention that they work out cheaper over the long run too? Around £35 ($66) savings per bulb over their lifetime!

As one influential US blogger pointed out, "If we switched all our bulbs, we could stop importing oil altogether. Without giving up one Hummer."

And yet, only 6% of Americans have even one Energy Saving lightbulb in their homes...

So what has this got to do with 6 degrees of separation and friendship networks? Nothing. Except that it is exactly these types of networks which can pass this kind of idea around the globe in days. And it is a subject that we feel pretty stongly about. And yes, our home has Energy Saving lightbulbs in pretty much every room, and has done for the last 5 years - in fact, we are still using most of our original lightbulbs!.

So please, if you are a blogger - blog about this. Or maybe send a link to this page to everyone you know so they can read about it. Or feel free to copy the text and make your own email. Just please - spread the word!

And change your lightbulbs to save the world.

The last couple of months have seen plenty of new countries joining the site - including India, Israel, Venezuela and Brazil. In fact, 26 countries are now represented, and there are over 300 people listed so far, which is over one every day - and the number of people adding profiles has been accelerating over time, which is great.

The most popular birthdays so far are 11th November, 31st May, and 23rd January, and there are some interesting degrees of separation developing.

The Easter Egg feature has also been significantly enhanced, so if you haven't found it yet, keep looking!

And be sure to keep up with your ranking by visiting your profile regularly...

For those in the world who do not already know (where have you been?), last night in Namibia, Africa, Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt welcomed their daughter Shiloh Nouvel Jolie-Pitt to the world. The name Shiloh, means 'peaceful' in Hebrew.

It was reported that the first picture of the baby would fetch up to $3 million (£1.6m), with the proceeds being given to Unicef, for whom Jolie acts as an ambassador, and other projects in Africa.

Congratulations to both, and good for them using the media interest to help such worthy causes.

Closer to home, we welcomed our first Chinese profile on the site this weekend, and also a new advertising partner, AdBrite.

With AdBrite, you can now book your advert on our pages online, and pay a flat rate for either a day, week or the month. Sponsored Links are shown full time across all free profile pages in prime area directly beneath the profile itself, as well as above the fold in the "Cool Sites" section of the Blog, and at the bottom of the photo display grid.

To mark this auspicious weekend, we have set special low introductory rates. For maximum exposure, only 4 advertisers are allowed at any one time, so first come, first served. Book your ad now.

Whilst chatting to the receptionist at my local dental surgery this morning, she told me that May 4th this year will be very special. Actually, two minutes and three seconds past 1am on May 4th, to be precise.

That is because at that time it will be:

01:02:03 on 04/05/06

Well, in the UK anyway... the Americans would have had this special date on 5th April...

We had our first Canadian join the site over the weekend - and looking forward to many more. To make the site more accessible to people worldwide, and encourage more people to join in, we have tweaked the listing criteria so that people without the means to make the $2 payment can list their profile free - we will add such profiles when our advertising revenues and/or donations to the site covers the cost of each free profile.

Free profiles are not guaranteed listing, will contain ads, and the favourite website link will not be clickable, so if you are wanting to promote a website, then paying is still the way to go...

Sorry, the movers screen and rankings data is all over the place today because I have tweaked the ranking algorithm so that it takes account of people who have made referral connections.

This is to ensure that the ranking system continues to work as originally intended, i.e. allowing the most connected people to move up the rankings, rather than just the most visually appealing (or unusual!) people who get lots of profile views.

The movers screen and ranking changes should straighten themselves out overnight when they are recalculated.

I think this new algorithm will make the ranking system fairer for those who join as time goes on, as well as emphasising one of the primary aims of the site - letting people discover their 'six degrees of separation'. This way, people can now proactively gain ranking by making connections, as well as by generating profile views.

Google has given us a pagerank of 5 - which shows us as an "important, high quality site". Which is even better news for people wanting to advertise their website via their profile.

The ranking system is starting to settle down nicely, with those people with the most referal links (and the most friends visiting their profile) moving up the rankings. In fact, our current number one ranked person moved from lowest to highest ranking in the space of a week by telling all his friends, so if you are on the site and haven't told all your friends yet - do it today!

We reached our first milestone yesterday - 100 people on the site, from 6 countries. These 100 people represent 100,000 of the worlds internet users, and 650,000 of the people in the world, and we have at least one example of '6 degrees of separation', so we are on track so far!

Thanks to everyone who has helped spread the world so far - there are still 1 billion more internet users out there who have not yet visited the site, so please continue to tell your friends!

Our traffic rank at Alexa got updated again, and we reached the top 37,000 sites on the internet today!




We also said Bonjour to our first French profile this week, and even got a mention on the The Times website technology section, which was pretty exciting.

Thanks to everyone who is spreading the word - please keep it up!

Saw a fascinating programme on BBC2 this evening called Meltdown, in which Arctic scientific expedition organiser Paul Rose goes on a quest to find out whether global warming is a man made problem, or part of the natural climate cycle.

Using the same distributed platform as the Seti@home project, and running the same model that the Met Office uses to make daily weather forecasts, the project aims to use the spare computing cycles of people home pc's to crunch out thousands of variations of climate change models, to see if they can get a concensus on what might happen in the next 50 years - and if just 10,000 people join in, then there will be more processing power than the worlds best supercomputer!

The first results are due to be announced in May, so by joining in you can do your bit towards a greater understanding of global warming.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/climatechange

Our Alexa ranking has been updated again - not bad for a site which has only been online less than two months... and our daily traffic rank means we are the top 63,000 sites on the internet!

For all you ranking junkies out there, I have added a new page on the site which shows the The Million People Page's biggest movers (up and down) on the site. This page will be updated when the rankings are recalculated each day.

Your change in ranking is also now shown on your profile page, so you can see how much you have moved up or down since the last ranking update.

Remember, your ranking on the site depends on the number of visitors to your profile, so by telling lots of people you are on the site you could be one of the movers and shakers too!

I have added an enhancement so that when it is someones birthday, their name shows up on the homepage. Also, when you view their profile, a Happy Birthday message is displayed.

As luck would have it, it is someones birthday today

If all one million people add their birthday, then by the laws of averages, there will be approximately 2740 birthdays every day. Wow...

But even more surprising is that according to Mathtrek it only takes 23 people in a group for there to be a 50/50 chance that two or more people share a birthday!

As of today (with 67 people on the site) there are already THREE people with the same birthday (1st November). I'll leave it you to find them...

I found myself awake at 4:30am this morning, thanks to a head cold, and despite a branded hot lemon drink, found I couldn't get back to sleep at all. So, out of sheer want of anything better to do whilst waiting for sunrise, I settled down to surf the net and see what was interesting people in the world.

One of the most fascinating theories which prompted this site is that of the 6 degrees of separation - the theory that everyone in the world is connected to everyone else through an average of 6 other people.

To really test this theory as the site grows, I have enhanced the "referred by" feature so that it is possible to move up and down the chains of people more easily.

The more people you refer to the site, the more chains that will end up linking to you - imagine being able to click on a random person and then find out that you are connected to them via distant friends!

So, grab a photo of yourself, add yourself to the site, and then tell all your friends - who knows who you may be connected to!

My very canny wife, Heidi, had the idea of creating a 'Top Sites' page to make the favourite websites feature more prominent, and the site an even better advertising proposition for people primarily wanting to plug a website.

So, here are the top websites on the Million People Page. By Rank, lists the websites chosen by the top ranked people, and By Popularity selects the websites most often chosen by people on the site.

I have also relaxed the validation on the buy a pixel profile page so that only Country and email address are mandatory, as some of my friends let me know that they would love to join in, but were uncomfortable with the information they had to give. So you can leave out anything you don't want to include (like Birthday) or even the photo if you are camera shy. Email addresses are used for ordering purposes only and DO NOT form part of your profile.

On the press front, I have contacted some of the top UK news providers: BBC News; Sky News; and The Register, as well as my favourite magazine, BBC Focus, and radio station, Virgin Radio.

No responses yet, but ever the opimist...