Astroturfing: falsely creating the impression of support for a cause or advocating a product/service by creating flogs, adding comments to social networking sites or submitting pretend amateur video footage, when in actual fact the whole process has been a professional marketing exercise.  This activity is no longer permitted under the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008.

 

 

Blessay: an article/essay written for and upload to your blog site.

 

 

Blog: A blog (or 'weblog') is a form of website where entries are added and filed in date order, almost like a diary, with the most recent entries at the top. They can be used for news, comment, reflection and as an alternative to a professional website. Examples include Wordpress.com and Blogger.com

 

 

Blogroll: A list of other interesting or useful blogs that you want to highlight/share with others.

 

 

Delicious: a site that allows you to bookmark/save websites to as  favourites that can be accessed from any computer. An example of Social Bookmarking, where the number of users to save or tag a site is used as a rating of site content quality. Useful for tracking subject Tags and sharing resouces.Other examples include Digg.com and Reddit.com.

 

Deep-Linking: setting up a link to a page on an organisation's website beyond their homepage. Some organisations do not allow this.

 

Download: Saving content from a website/online service to your PC/laptop/PDA. See also Upload.

 

 

Facebook: this is a free site that allows you to set up an online profile (or presence) which you then use to keep in touch with friends by posting news/diary entries, sending messages, joining interest groups, sharing pictures and inviting them to play games- all within the Facebook site itself. Once you are a member you can use a search box to find people by name and send them a message (or ‘poke them’ to see if they want to keep in touch). MySpace.com is a similar, more US-based service.

 

 

Flickr: A free site that allows you to upload, organize, comment on and share photographs (and now short video clips) with other site members. A small fee changes your account to a professional one, where photo-editing tools are available. Photobucket.com is a similar service.

 

Flog: A 'fake blog' often created  to advertise/market a product. This activity is no longer permitted under the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading regulations 2008.

 

Ghosting:  writing a blog or other social site on behalf of someone else/another company and not declaring that you are the actual author. Frowned upon by service users and other professional bodies such as the CIPR. Also used to describe a form of identity theft.

 

Homepage: the main or 'frontpage' of a company/organisation website. Usually the page that opens when you type in their website address.

 

 

IM: Instant Messaging is even more informal than email. Through a service like MSN Messenger you can tell who is logged in at any time and talk to them immediately – usually through a small text box on the corner of your screen. Almost like online text messaging.

 

 

Mash-up: This term originally came from the Music Industry indicating that two separate tracks had been edited together to create a new song. In Web 2.0, a mash-up refers to an application that can merge information from two different sources to create a new (often more useful) tool. An example would be traffic information from one site imprinted on to a Google or Yahoo map.

 

 

Microblogging: Sending brief updates and posts (between 40-160 letters long) to a personal blog through a service like Twitter.

 

 

Podcast: This came from two terms “iPod” and “Broadcast”.  It is an audio broadcast (i.e. like a radio show) that has been converted into a file type like an MP3 and can be downloaded onto any portable digital music player. What makes these special is that you can sign up to them with RSS (see below) and be alerted each time a new one is available, just like being alerted to a new item in a news feed.  They are often provided free of charge and are used as a ‘listen again’ service for programmes you may have missed or as one-off shows.

 

 

Podgramme: mixture of ‘Podcast’ and ‘Programme’ – as in a podcast of a radio programme.

 

 

Post: an article/comment/image that you publish on your website, wiki or blog.

 

ROI: Return on investment. Again, a marketing term that is being used to describe the pay backs for the effort you put into your digital marketing stragegy. 

 

RSS: A piece of code that you can copy into a website/blog/wiki/RSS aggregator that updates automatically each time a new headline or piece of information is added to your chosen site.

 

 

RSS Aggregator: A (usually free) service that allows you to add a large number of RSS feeds on to one page online. You can access it for any computer and keep up to date with your chosen subject by just visiting one place. The next step on from email/text alerts with services like Pageflakes and Newsgator.

 

SEO - search engine optimisation. This is a major part of commerical use of social media - how to get your website (and therefore your brand/product/service) noticed by search engines and regularly placed high in search results. 

 

 

Screencast: This is essentially a video clip with audio commentary, capturing what happens on screen when using a computer programme. They are used more and more for IT training and for an easy way to disseminate hints and tips about how to use particular computer software packages.

 

 

Skin: (or Theme) the layout/template and colours of your blog, wiki or IM service. Sometimes these can be customised, but you will usually have to pay a small fee to be able to do this.

 

 

Social Bookmarking: Like adding websites to your College Favourites Menu, but hosted by an online service. It can also include sites that allow you to save and share any type of file or photograph. But the difference is you can access the list/files from any computer, share these with anyone and add ‘tags’ to each site/file/image saved. Examples include Del.icio.us, Stumbleupon, Flickr or Photobucket.

 

 

Social Networking (sites): The most visible form of Web2.0 at the moment. Free websites allow you to set up a private/public persona online within their protected network and you socialise/network/build contacts thorough this service. Can have lots of add-ons like Facebook or be a more basic messaging service like Twitter or Bebo. It’s your circle of friends/acquaintances/business partners as an online interconnected community.

 

 

Tag: An informal subject heading you can add to a blog post, bookmark or wiki page to categorise, share and find the item later.

 

Tweckle: to abuse a speaker only to other Twitter followers in the audience while he/she is speaking

 

Twibe: a Twitter group that you can join to follow other people’s posts on a specific subject  i.e. photography, music, education. You can also create your own Twibe group.

 

 

Twitter: this service allows you to post brief updates (see micro-blogging above) to a central site. Other members can then ‘follow you’ and get automatically updated each time you post. Users often update hourly to keep in touch with followers.

 

 

Twitgoo/Twitpic: an additional website that allows you to upload a picture, rather than text, on to Twitter.

 

 

Tweet: the actual post you upload to Twitter.

 

 

Uploading: Saving pictures/content from your PC / Pendrive / Phone to a blog / wiki/ webpage/ bookmarking site. See also Download.

 

 

Vlog: like a Blog, but making video diary entries rather than writing posts.

 

 

Web 2.0: No-one has settled on one true definition of this but its general taken to mean a new way of using the Web to facilitate user generated content, online access any time, any where to your files and multiple ways of communicating/linking/sharing information online.

 

 

Widget: Are the small boxes you see to the side of a blog or webpage that are pre-programmed to contain, text, pictures, RSS feeds and more. It is an easy way of adding extras to your site without needing to know any programming language.

 

 

Wiki: An online service that allows you to create a webpage for free or create shared online page for group working. Works best for collaboration and adding information through links. Providers include PBworks.com and Wetpaint.com.

 

 

Youtube: a free site that allows you to watch, upload, organise and share video clips just with friends or the whole Web.