Greenpeace delivers campaign message by moblog

Greenpeace protesters gave web users a bird's eye view of their latest online communications campaign when they used a moblog to capture an effort to shut down a power station in Oxfordshire.

Environmental campaigners stopped the flow of coal into the facility at Didcot before dawn on Thursday, then scaled a 600ft chimney in protest against the use of coal-fired stations.

Group members chained themselves to the top of the tower in order to send pictures and video from the high-wire broadcast outpost directly to the web, treating browsers to several camera phone snaps and video progress updates.

The dispatches were viewed over 5,000 times during the first day of the incursion and the protesters were said to be still occupying their perch Friday morning.

"For campaigns that rely on transmitting messages or information in real time, a moblog gives not only that ability, but also for discourse to take place around that message or action as it's happening," Alfie Dennen of moblog.co.uk, which powers the site, told E-consultancy.

"The discourse using comments is phenomenal, with Didcot residents commenting and discussing this protest alongside moderates and more extreme environmentalists - Greenpeace have created conversation where before there was none."

It is the first time the environmental pressure group has used the moblog since its debut in July, when it chronicled its occupation of London's Admirality Arch in another action.