Thanks to Paula for reminding me that not everybody is clear on what the terms that are popular around here are. Here’s a quick vocabulary page that you can refer back to. I’ll add other definitions as I realize that they are needed here. If you know of one that I’m missing, please drop me a line and let me know.
Blidget–A widget comprised of RSS feeds of a blog.
Blog–short for Weblog, blog is any form of online journal maintained by an individual.
Meebo–a website that allows users to log into various instant messengers without downloading the software to run the instant messenger on their computer.
Micro-blogging–a form of blogging in which users create text updates that are generally under 200 words and publish them to the Internet. The most popular micro-blogging site right now is Twitter.
Pingback–any time you add a link to another site to your blog, the Internet automatically alerts that site to your link. This is called a Pingback.
RSS–Rich Site Summary is a means of syndicating the web’s content. RSS is sent via “feeds” and alerts a user to the time and content updated to a specific website.
Social Bookmarking–Social networks that are focused around a user bookmarking a webpage to share it with friends. If you think of the bookmarking option as the same as bookmarking a webpage to your bookmarks within the web browser, you’re on the right track. However, instead of bookmarking to the browser, you are bookmarking to a website. Through this website, you can share your bookmarks with friends in your social networks.
Social Network–Essentially, these are networks, both public and private, that are created through the use of online social networking sites such as MySpace, Facebook, and Twitter.
Tag–a form of categorizing online content. Tags can also be used to link an item (blog post, bookmark, etc) to a person or to link a person to a category. For example, on my blog you will find the category “First Year Composition.” I can add tags to my blog posts that add these posts to the category not only on my blog, but also in the larger category of “First Year Composition” available through a search engine. I can also take any of my online profiles (Classroom 2.0, The Apple, Inernational Edubloggers, etc.) and add a tag to my profile that will link me as a person to this larger category
Twitter–a micro-blogging social network that allows users to constantly update their friends on their current actions.
Tweet–the name given to brief updates provided on Twitter. Each time a user updates their status they are said to be “tweeting.”
Video Sharing Service–an Internet site that allows users to upload video clips for viewing by Internet users.
Web 2.0–The current “generation” of the Internet. To think of the early days of the Internet as Web 1.0 where users did nothing more than log in to receive information from websites that corporate sponsors paid well to have, Web 2.0 is a more interactive generation of Internet. In Web 2.0 we have seen the development of blogs and wikis along with many other user-driven web applications.
Widget–a specific HTML based code that is installed on a website or blog by the site owner or blogger. Widgets are designed to carry out very specific tasks without interfering with the other aspects of the site or requiring additional commands from the user. The code functions vary depending on what the widget is told to do. For example, if you look at the side of this blog, both the Classroom 2.0 badge and the Meebo interface are considered widgets, but each one functions differently.
Wiki–a collaborative website that allows users to create, edit and link pages. Wikis can be edited by anybody who has access to the site. Wikis are generally used to share information among groups of individuals who can contribute to the expansion of the information as they choose.
YouTube–website that allows viewers to watch, upload and share videos.
