If you’ve used Twitter for any length of time you’ve probably noticed the phenomenom called “Follow Friday” where people tweet about people they think are worth following and actively search out new people to follow themselves.   If anything, “Follow Friday” shows us how something can gain traction when it’s simple and consistent.  Probably not too many people heard about it when it first started but because the few that did kept doing it and used a common hashtag – it quickly gained a following (pardon the pun) in the twitter realm.

I’m writing this post because of my love for WordPress and especially all the developers out there who contribute code to both the opensource project and the thousands of plugins and themes that make it such a great tool for all of us.  There has been discussion over the years of ways in which we can express appreciation to the developers who freely offer up their code to the world to use (and all the hours put into developing, maintaining, and supporting that code) but as a plugin developer myself (only one at that),  although I’ve appreciated gratitude sent my way and reviews posted on people’s blogs nothing has stoked me more than seeing that little notification from PayPal that someone has donated a sum of money to me.  The dollar amount doesn’t really matter – it’s more the realization that someone thinks what I’ve invested so much time in worthwhile enough to pay for.

How are the above two paragraphs connected?  Well, I’d like to propose starting something this Friday called “Donate Friday” – each Friday for as long as I can do it – I’m going to pick a plugin that I’m using on any of my websites and donate to them and then tweet about the plugin (including linkies of course) with the hashtag #donatefriday (I checked it and it’s not in use at the time of this post).  If enough of us do this, it will be an incredible way to express our appreciation to the developers in the WordPress community who help make WordPress so awesome.

How can you participate? In keeping with the #followfriday example:

• pick who you will donate to.  Most plugin or theme authors have a donate link either on their plugin/theme listing at WordPress extend OR on the page they host their plugin/theme at on their own website.  You may also just want to donate to someone who contributes code to the WordPress project.
• Pick an amount.  It doesn’t have to be a lot,  even as little as $5 is fine!  Some of you may be able to donate more than others – if you can, think of what you would be willing to pay for what you are using if you had to pay for it.  However, remember the whole point is just to lift up that developers day and give them reason to keep on working away at it!  Surely, you can spare around the cost of a gourmet coffee once a week?
• Tweet about it using the #donatefriday hashtag.  Make sure you include the plugin/theme name,  the developer and link to the plugin page in your tweet.  Do something like, “Just donated to {name of developer} for {name of plugin/theme}.  Makes my blog purr. #donatefriday”
• MAKE sure you actually donate!

What do you think folks?  A good idea?  I really do hope it gains traction – think of the impact this will make (especially for developers in between jobs) in the WordPress community?

UPDATE: I realize I posted this fairly early in the week, but by doing so I hope the idea gains more steam before this Friday so it maximizes participation.  If you are reading this and want to participate but think you may forget this Friday let me remind you, follow me on Twitter and you’ll catch my #donatefriday this week (or you can use something like Peoplebrowsr.com to save a #donatefriday search).

UPDATE (JULY 31, 2009): I  made my first donation for #donatefriday.  Sure hope more people do this!! Also Dave Moyer, the cohost and producer of WordCast (the #1 WordPress and blogging podcast) has picked up this idea and is helping to promote it.  He got in touch with me and if you tweet your donations with @wordcast and #donatefriday (he is also said #df but that tag is already in use so I think it’d be better if we stuck with #donatefriday) then he’ll read your name on the air.  Thanks Dave!

UPDATE (August 14, 2009): Using “Twitter for WordPress Extended” by Marc Schieferdecker to display #donatefriday tweets in my sidebar on this page.  Wanna give you peeps donating more recognition!