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.

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