Digital immigrant

I think I know a bit about the internet, Web 2.0 and everything that goes with it. I’ve only been reading blogs since 2006 but I have been compensating for it by blogging and commenting on others’ blogs. Please don’t subject me to a Web 2.0 test, though; I’ll fail it.

So I tried to tweet one of  The Sartorialist’s blog posts last week. And the week before last, too.  I just couldn’t understand why I was unable to.  I gave up trying to find the ‘permalink‘ and decided to google the title, which gave me the permalink to the blog post. I was relieved. And I felt a little clever, too: I struggled, or ‘struggled’ with a problem until I found a solution that worked for me. Malcolm Gladwell would be proud of me. It wasn’t the solution I was aiming for but it satisfied me. And never mind that I discovered the solution accidentally.

But not knowing how to find the permalink on The Sartorialist, or on other such sites, bothered me. I wondered whether the site owner didn’t want people to link to specific blog posts. It’s Blogging Basics 101 to make things as easy as possible. It’s also part of netiquette to give users a direct URL to a specific post. So I wondered whether I am the st00pid one. ‘Tis possible, you know.

And then I had one of those near-Eureka moments: I got it. Well, I was probably just bored. Only boredom could’ve made me click on the time in the blog post.

posted by The Sartorialist at 8:58 AM 28 comments

See that? The 8:58 AM ? I clicked on that and it gave me the permalink to the blog post. WTF.

Am I the only n00b who didn’t know that certain — not all — Blogger-based blogs’ permalinks are only viewable when clicking on the time? Is this general knowledge?

Now it’s your turn. What internet-related thing did you only discover recently? Something you should’ve known but were to embarrassed to ask for help?

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