A stroll down e-memory lane

a stencil photographed by flickr gal ssimm1rg

With the deluge of new sites and tools and applications and gagets heaped upon us daily, it’s enough to make me want to say “enough already,” or as they’d say in Spanish, Ya Basta!

And you know what? If it weren’t for the internet being so darned hot, we might not be here, able to use ‘ya Basta!’ in a sentence.

Back in the era of web 1.0, in the winter of 1993, hotmail was the thing revolutionizing communications — really. Everyone was signing up for accounts, and a good user name was hard to come by. I was traveling in southern Mexico, and met a woman who, fed up with trying every variation of her plain Jane name coming up with a big red “unavailable” (while in an internet cafe, paying by the minute,) she typed in Ya_Basta and voila! presto! ya_basta she was.

It’s amazing, the degree to which new usage of the internet is pushing us to reach into other languages to name our experiences, our efforts, our tools.

I’d be really curious what you’d have to say on this, and/or if you’ve heard anyone else thinking/talking about the same thing…

I know that online…

I don’t know why the sky is blue, exactly.

I can’t really define what makes me, me today, either.

But I’ve been taking this online PR course with Melanie McBride, and between her, and me, and the people in our classroom neighbourhood and beyond, I do know a few things:

I like to think I know a little something about you: You don’t want this post to go on forever. I know that it’s important to know your audience.

I know that, in tech land, like anywhere, it’s important to learn from the successes – and failures – of the other guy/gal. For example, Brian Solis, author of the successful TechCrunch article PR Secrets for Startups, went on way too long for a blog post. That kind of length might work in a magazine, but reading online is a quick business.

So here I’ll make like Stephen Harper (there’s a first for everything), understanding that the masses (hopefully) appreciate a number you can count on one hand, and offer up five (more) things I know about being online today:

All that’s new is getting old pretty quick. A google search for the term “web 2.0″ yielded well over 75 million results; the term “2.0,” over one and a quarter billion hits.

I can appreciate that there’s a collective yen, in this fast-moving age, to find a new way of saying ‘new,’ but ‘2.0′ doesn’t cut it. Everything new is NOT ‘2.0.’

And I’m not alone in thinking about this 2.0 business. The blogosphere is filling up with posts. Acroding to BlogSearchEngine.com “web 2.0,” has been sited 167,179 times. And half a dozen of those posts written today. There was even one in Spanish. And happily, there was this one, which just about says it all.

While a course assignment on “PR2.0″ might have some relevancy to the accepted working definition(s) of “web 2.0,” missives like these do not.

• Blog posts on Obama as the “Web 2.0 President,” that speak much more about (the also interesting topic of) metro-racial identity much more than the web;
• an eco-community conference with the handle “Back to the Land 2.0,” (a celebration of Dragonfly Farm’s 30th anniversary this August; try this email for more info)

and those are just the ones crossing my desk (the old fashioned term of ‘in-box’) this week! Please, people. Stop dulling the etymological egde on this one — over/mis-usage of the term ‘2.0′ is in grave danger of rendering the term meaningless. And what do you suppose comes after 2.0? 2.1? 2.01? 2.001? plain old 3?

While wikipedia has been a friend for years, I’ve only recently been introduced to the creation and use of wikis for other purposes. Always a curious sort, I wondered at the origins of the term, and found (where else) that:

“WikiWikiWeb was the first site to be called a wiki. Ward Cunningham installed it March, 1995. Remembering a Honolulu International Airport counter employee telling him to take the “Wiki Wiki” shuttle bus that runs between the airport’s terminals, Cunningham, chose wiki-wiki as an alliterative substitute for ‘quick’ and thereby avoided naming this stuff quick-web.”

Cool, hun? And a wiki remains a fast-fast web way of working together.

I LOVE the way language seems to be evolving around the web, bringing in what’s needed, working with what catches on. Kijiji is another example that comes to mind. A free, local classifieds site with a memorable name, meaning village in Swahili.

I don’t, at first glance, see any other writing about this – but would be very interested if anyone were looking in to it, and what they had to say.

But back to “in plain English,” I come to the third point — Share & share alike (don’t be proprietary).

There’s this most excellent series online, the Commoncraft “in plain English” series. They’re generally short, great, simple how-to videos on everything from wikis to google docs to twitter, blogs, social networking and beyond. Great for filling in any blanks in your knowledge, and a great resource for clients, too — they’ll think you’re a genius for hooking them up with these darling animated instructional pieces. In less than a week “Wikis in Plain English“ was seen 8,000 times, with a total today of 319,781 viewings.

And how did I learn about commonCraft? From my friends. Never forget that there are helpful people wiser than you.

While it’s important to do all you can to figure something out, when you’re still interested in getting to the bottow of some new trick, be it the technical basics of how to vlog, or the advantages of an uber-aggregator like friend feed, there are people out there who just might be able — and willing — to help.

In our class John Papa rocks for his so-quick sense of humour (follow him, I say). Sarah Roger is a loveley hip-to-the-jive soul and knowlegeable social media heartthrob. And for all those mac lovers out there, you have a friend and a confidante in Kyla Kryski – check her out.

There’s a wealth of generous, tip-ful people out there, seemingly ready, willing and able to lend a hand (within reason) in learning about the tools of the trade. Our intrepid prof Mel McBride had a link to Marshall Kirkpatrick’s 5 Tools Everyone Working Online Should Have, and now I’ve linked to every tool in this a rock’em sock’em post.

And even someone as knowledgeable about the web as Kirkpatrick knows that there’s more to learn, and invites comments/additions ato his post. And they’re worth reading, too (note the ecchoing support of Netvibes over iGoogle).

Tip and tip alike.

p.s. — did you know about the ‘toggle fullscreen mode’ tool (the little screen/box icon on your toolbar? it’s a grrrreat help in composing these longer posts.

Headline writing 2.0: Say what you mean

Being a student of online PR interested in electoral politics, I was stoked when Peter Marmorek, Editor of the Tikkun Toronto Newsletter sent a Blog post entitled “The First Web 2.0 President?“

You don’t have to ask who that would be, do you? Think hip… Think U.S… Think ‘metroracial’.

Juan Cole certainly was. Despite the catchy headline (do you call the head of a blog a ‘headline?’), Cole was over 680 words in before he got to the issue of the web, and even then, he didn’t give it much ink.

Almost all of his article, and almost all of the comments on his article, were interested in the issue of (another catchy new buzzword) ‘metroracial’ identity. Which is very interesting. Just DON’T call your piece something it’s not — don’t promise “informed comment” on the Obama camp’s uses of the net.

In our program the talented Ted Barris recently schooled us in copy editing, including a cursory look at headline writing. We got docked marks for a) being inaccurate, and b)favouring sensationalism over fact. And just to be particularly didactic, Obama might be the first Web 2.0 candidate, but, no matter how much we like him, he is not (yet) president. And no, Juan, adding a question mark to the headline doesn’t sufficiently skirt the issue.

There ARE some decent posts out there on the Obama campaign’s use of web 2.0. Check out CyberInfrastructure 2.0 (short, clear, but not so much analysis), or TechNewsWorld and others on the deft use of a web 2.0 approach with the launch of FightTheSmears, or for an incisive look at this issue from way back in February, see this cool post at Eyeteeth. It’s the bomb.

Perhaps Juan Cole’d best stick to his tag line: “Thoughts on the Middle East, History, and Religion.”

Granted, if the article hadn’t of had such a catchy headline, we wouldn’t be here now.

Eegads! Whatever shall I call this post? Suggestions welcome. It’s a blog. We can always edit…

Budding PR Students: Let’s Get Visual

In Brian Solis’ much commented on May 25th article PR Secrets for Startups, what I learned, above and beyond Solis’ 12 useful ’secrets’, was actually from the realm of the medium, and not necessarily the message.

I read the (long) article. And started in on the (numerous) comments. What really interested me? What drew my attention? Loic Lemure’s video post. And it wasn’t even the content, it was just that it was a VIDEO.

From all the responses to the post, the video images are more interesting, more attractive, more appealing than just the text.

This insight relates Solis’ secret #1 (you’re not the only game in town — spice. it. up.) and secret #6 (build relationships, create value), but it goes beyond that: get visual.

At our prof’s site even, it’s the visuals that entice. Happy to see she ‘gets it’, and is, as usual, out in front on this one.

Ok. I can’t very well end a post on gettin’ visual without an image, now can I?

Here, in homage to the garden I’ve been tending with care, and to my own, and my classmates’ budding knowledge in this field, this bud’s for you:

Timing & Placement key in (PR) blogging

When do I write this?

Where do I post it?

In the well commented on TechCrunch article PR Secrets for Startups, author Brian Solis offers the to-him-obvious council: don’t break your news on your own blog.

“Like press releases crossing the wire, breaking news on your blog makes the news less valuable if others haven’t yet had an opportunity to break it for you first. It’s like the new car analogy. The value of the car drops the minute you drive it off the lot. Time your post for after when the news breaks and link to everyone who helped cover the story…”

As a newbie in the field, this resonates. Think About What I’m Doing.

Be Strategic.

Further to Solis’ point (#10), “Your Company Blog is More Powerful Than You May Think.” True, I don’t want to piss off a client or anyone else by stealing their thunder. If I have something to say, unless I’m working for a big wig, someone everyone’s following, good if I seriously consider where I post my info. There’s little use hiding whatever light I have under the bushel of my own blog (company) if a more sun-drenched forum exists.

Off now to go post this as a comment on TechCrunch…

Next up: “Let’s Get Visual,” thoughts on the importance of images in blogging.

Yuppers. I’m a-doin’ it.

This is me. Miriam. Learning-up on how to blog…

Happy to *finally* be doing this.