Are you confused about the rapidly growing world of social media? You're not alone. Here is the start of a glossary of Web 2.0 terms that I'll be sharing with you over the next weeks. Read on and learn how to speak like a Social Media Maven.
Adsense: Google's pay-per-click program that places context-appropriate ads in blogs and websites, allowing the site owners to make revenue.
Adwords: The advertiser program that populates the Adsense program. The advertiser pays Google on a per-click basis.
Aggregator: A web-based tool or desktop application that collects syndicated content such as RSS feeds.
Alerts: A tool to get a search engine to tell you whenever a new page is published on the web, which includes your specific keyword. One of the most used is Google Alerts.
Analytics: A site or software that shows visitor activity on a blog or website. (i.e. how many unique users, number of pages looked at, time on site, etc.) Google Analytics is the most famous analytic tool.
API: Short for Application Programming Interface. A computer system or application allowing for requests to be made of it by other programs and allows for data to be exchanged.
Archives: A collection of previous posts, often indexed by either category or date.
Atom: A popular feed format used for syndicating content.
Avatar: A graphic depiction that replaces a photo of the author of content on a blog.
Bebo.com: A free one-stop-shop for Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, Delicious, Twitter, AIM, AOL Mail, Google Mail and Yahoo! Mail updates.
Blog: A contraction of "weblog." A website where a person or persons publishes entries ranging from text to photographs to video and podcasts to inform or create discussions and comments; presented in reverse chronological order.
Blog entry: A single post (AKA article).
Blogger: One who writes a blog; also the name of Google's free blogging platform.
Blogosphere: General term for all the blogs on the Internet.
Blogroll: An index of blog URLs that the blogger recommends, displayed in the sidebar of the blog.
Boardreader: An aggregator of message boards and forum discussions.
Bookmarking: Saving the address of a website or item of content, either in a computer's browser, or on a social bookmarking site like del.icio.us and digg.
Browser: The tool used to view websites and access the content available there onscreen or by downloading. Browsers may also be used to upload or otherwise contribute content to a blog or other website.
Bulletin boards: The early vehicles for online collaboration, where users connected with a central computer to post and read email-like messages or notices. The term is still used for forums.
Bx.businessweek.com: Like Twitter for business. Links to articles that might be of interest to business.
CMS: A content management system.
CPA (Cost Per Action): The publisher of a blog is paid a fee based on specific actions the user does.
CPC (Cost Per Click): The blog publisher is paid when the user clicks on an ad link - as with Google Adwords.
CPM (Cost Per Mille (thousand impressions)): The publisher of a blog is paid every time the user sees an ad on the blog.
CPI (Cost Per Install): A specific type of CPA where the action is the installation of a social application.
CSS (Cascading Style Sheets): Language used to describe the look and formatting of a web document written most commonly in HTML and XHTML.
Chat: Interaction on a web site, with a number of people adding text items one after the other into the same space at nearly the same time.
Chat room: A place on the Internet where chatting happens in real time, almost like face-to-face conversation.
The Cloud: A metaphor for the Internet based on how it is depicted in computer network diagrams. It is most associated with cloud computing (storage of data not on a computer's hard drive but on an Internet server elsewhere).
Cluster: Groupings of content with similar tags.
Collaboration: Social media tools from email lists to virtual worlds offer enormous scope for collaboration. Low-risk activities like commenting, social bookmarking, chatting and blogging help develop the trust necessary for collaboration.
Comments: Replies or opinions in reference to the topic at hand; usually left on blog posts.
Communities: Groups of Internet users who have a shared interest to talk about or who want to learn from each other and find solutions to shared problems.
Compete: A website that provides web analytics (i.e. unique monthly visitors to the site) and enables people to compare and contrast up to 5 different sites at a time.
Content: Text, pictures, video and any other meaningful material that is on the Internet. In the blogosphere, it is often said that "content is king."
Control: Social networking is difficult to control because if people can't say something in one place they can blog or comment elsewhere. That can be challenging for organizations used to centrally-managed websites.
Context ads: Advertising placed directly inside or next to relevant content or features in a blog or website.
Crowdsourcing: Using the skills and enthusiasm of those outside an organization who are prepared to contribute. Crowdspring is one such site.
Culture: Social media only works well in a culture of openness, where people are prepared to share. For that reason, commitment and attitude are as important as tools.
Look for more next time. And if this glossary is helpful to you, why not subscribe to my blog via email or RSS feed so you don't miss a single post?
Add this page to your favorite Social Bookmarking websites
