Today is the first OneWebDay, a global awareness event to "create, maintain, advance and promote a global day to celebrate online life." It was founded by Susan Crawford, associate professor at the Cardozo School of Law in New York City. Some big Web names have been lined up in support - including Sir Tim Berners-Lee and Craig Newmark of craigslist. Virtual celebrations will be held in Second Life and there will be real-world celebrations around the globe.

I can certainly get behind a message like this:

"The idea behind OneWebDay is to tell the story of how the web changes lives around the world. We're making the web visible so that we don't take it for granted."

Fred Wilson does the Al Gore thing and riffs on the ecology metaphor:

"The web is like planet earth. It's an amazing resource that we need to value, respect, protect, and celebrate."

Even skeptical tech news website The Register gets into the spirit:

"The idea behind OneWebDay is to remember that the web is not just a jumble of machines, but also a social environment."

The About Page of OneWebDay lays out the message in detail:

"The Web is worth celebrating.

OneWebDay is one day a year when we all - everyone around the physical globe - can celebrate the Web and what it means to us as individuals, organizations, and communities.

As with Earth Day - an inspiration and model for OneWebDay - it’s up to the celebrants to decide how to celebrate. We encourage all celebrations! Collaboration, connection, creativity, freedom.

By the end of the day, the Web should be just a little bit better than it was before, and we’ll be able to see our connection to it more clearly."

Pic: jonasgoldstein

Suggested activities include: Collective art projects (see yourself as a pixel); Music mashups; Contributing to a slide show of flickr images of people doing the onewebday hand signal (see above); Teach your grandmother to blog; Make a website for your club, church, school; Employees: teach your boss to IM; Doctors: Set up web-based self-scheduling for patients.

I'm all for this (well, except maybe the hand signal...). The thought behind it is a great one, so Read/WriteWeb encourages you to get out there and celebrate the Web!