Trumblog

Here is another of my old posts from a now defunct blog, originally posted 6/13/07.

Here are some definitions for a variety of terms often used when discussing Web 2.0. Some are programming languages and techniques; others are concepts and types of media. These are my definitions and won’t include every last detail or facet of the term, but they will help you understand a lot more during your next conversation about Web 2.0. Let me know if there are additional terms that I should add or clarifications to the definitions that I should make, and I’ll be sure to update the Glossary.

AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) – a development technique that allows a webpage to mimic a stand-alone application. AJAX uses XML and JavaScript and regularly exchanges small amounts of data between the browser and server reducing the need for page reloads. Examples include GMail, Flickr, Pandora)

API (application programming interface) – code provided by a program or system so that others may produce new programs that interface with the original system. For example, the Microsoft Windows API is made available to the public so that programs may be developed that work on the Windows operating system. Ease of use for an API can be critical to the success of a Web 2.0 company, increasing the amount of user-generated widgets and secondary uses of the company’s product.

Blog – short for web log, an online diary or column, where entries are listed in reverse chronological order.

Chicklet – the small buttons found on webpages and blogs that are links for subscribing to the RSS feed on that page or adding the page to a social bookmarking tool.

Cluetrain Manifesto – website and later a book written by Rick Levine, Christopher Locke, Doc Searls and David Weinberger arguing that markets are conversations and advocating for open conversations between companies and their customers in a human voice. This concept has lead to the rise of corporate blogging and the inclusion of consumer-generated content on company websites.

Consumer-Generated Content (also User-Generated Content) – content produced by users and posted online on third-party websites. Examples include user reviews, blogs, user-produced commercials, YouTube, social-bookmarks.

Crowdsourcing – the use of an unmanaged group to perform tasks typically undertaken by an individual or team, typically in a shared online environment. Examples include iStockphoto, where amateur photographers upload images to a stock image library, open source software and wikis.

CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) – a language that describes the way that HTML content is styled using fonts, colors, etc. This allows the content to be kept separate from the design so that the look of the site can be modified without changing the content.
For example, CSS would indicate that all text should be black, a book’s title should be centered, 48 pt and underlined, but paragraph text should be left justified and 10 pt, and this would be the case whether the title was Moby Dick and the first line of paragraph text is “Call me Ishmael.” or the title is A Tale of Two Cities and the first line of paragraph text is “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.”

Folksonomy – a classification or categorization of content by the community rather than the creator, often through tagging.

Long Tail – coined by Chris Anderson and described in his book The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business Is Selling Less of More, the term refers to the “power law” found when graphing the volume of items sold by the inventory of items available. The graph shows that a small number of items sell the highest volume followed by a “tail” of low-demand, low-volume products that never reaches a point with items that are never sold. The theory argues that a company with unlimited ability to handle inventory can make as much money from the tail as from the head due to the tail’s length. Retail examples include Amazon.com, iTunes and Netflix.

Mashup – a combination of multiple elements to create a new or hybrid item. Mashups can be software, audio, video or text. Examples include combinations of various content sources via feeds or the use of an API, for example, a My Yahoo page, or the combination of two audio sources as in The Grey Album, Danger Mouse’s combination of Jay-Z’s The Black Album with The Beatles’ The White Album.

Metadata – data describing an object (webpage, article, image, video, etc). For example, metadata in an MP3 file may indicate the track title and artist’s name, and on a webpage, metadata would include a description, tag or keywords for a certain content item.

Podcast – a serial audio recording made available online either on a webpage or via RSS.

RSS (Real Simple Syndication) – a format used to publish and distribute content online. Content can consist of text, audio, images, etc., that is often updated, such as news, blog entries, and podcasts, but can consist of other content refreshed on a regular basis. Syndicated feeds may be read using a feed reader, an online RSS aggregator and most popular web browsers. Feeds can also be incorporated into a website as a widget.

Social Network – a website of personalized member webpages connected to each other by the shared interests or ties between members. Examples are MySpace, Friendster, LinkedIn, etc.

Social Bookmarking – the aggregation of links to webpages selected by users and tagged to indicate the webpage’s content. Links to similar content are determined by their sharing tags, and the quality of a link is determined by the number of bookmarks with a specific tag to that page. Social bookmarking has a natural search engine optimization component due to the inbound links to a page that are generated as well as the “quality” of a link determined by the fact that it was bookmarked in the first place. Examples include Del.icio.us and Digg.

Syndication – the distribution of content. Online this may be done through the use of RSS.

Tag – a metadata keyword describing an object (article, image, video, etc.) typically made up of 1 or 2 words. In Web 2.0 parlance, a tag is a keyword applied by a user that is then used as an alternate form of categorization so that an object may be categorized by multiple tags using a content aggregator, such as social bookmarking or a tag cloud.

Tag Cloud – a graphic representation of tags listed alphabetically and sized to indicate tags that refer to greater numbers of items.

User-Generated Content – see Consumer-Generated Content.

Vlog – a video blog.

Web 2.0 – the second phase of online activity where websites act as tools to make content accessible to more people, typically through the aggregation and categorization content and users’ modification and comments on that content.

Widget – a independent sub-program developed to function within a larger program or system that is typically focused on the performance of one basic task. Apple OS X Dashboard and Windows Vista Sidebar (gadgets) manage widgets within desktop operating systems. Many websites such as MySpace and many blogs incorporate user-produced widgets.

Wiki – a collaborative website that allows users to add and update content to it.

XML (Extensible Markup Language) – a markup language that describes content and its structure. In the context of a dynamic website, XML can be used to keep design and formatting separate from the underlying content so that one can be changed without affecting the other. It also allows the content to be easily used across multiple media.
For example, in an XML file of books, one book may have a title of Moby Dick and paragraph text “Call me Ishmael.” but nothing about the size of the title, color of the text or whether it is right or left justified.