Recently a series of posts Sick Kids: Srhiners, IHOP, and the Austin Digg Community Free Pancakes!!! Social Networking Charity/Volunteer Experiment Austin, TX, Free Pancakes Today, February 12th!!! ran on this blog that asked the question: Can social networking sites serve as philanthropic vehicles to move users to action in the real world? Could Digg, del.icio.us, stumbleupon, reddit and other social networking sites be utilized to bring people to a fund raising event for the Shriner's hospitals . And the answer is absolutely: YES! The preliminary fundraising numbers are in, and the amount raised went from $8,000 last year to $13,000 this year! There isn't any information yet on how much of that money came from social networking, but as Andrea Grimes of ' Girl On Top ' noted: Turns out this little experiment is quite cool: rather than promoting the event traditionally--which is why when I Google Newsed it, nothing came up but Shriner's minutes meetings--they'