Essential New Media Terms

Affiliate Marketing:

A popular marketing technique that partners merchant with website in which the merchant compensates the website based on performance (e.g. referrals).

Aggregator:

Also referred to as a feedreader, an aggregator is a tool that collects all the feeds a user has subscribed to and places them into an organized, readable form on the desktop or in an internet browser.

Ajax:

Asynchronous JavaScript And XML (Ajax) is a Web development technique for creating interactive Web applications. The intent is to make Web pages feel more responsive by exchanging small amounts of data with the server behind the scenes, so that the entire Web page does not have to be reloaded each time the use makes a change. This is meant to increase the Web page's interactivity, speed, and usability.

Anchor Text:

The visible text used in a hyperlink. Anchor Text can improve Search Engine Optimization (see definition below) by making hyperlink text relevant to the landing page of a Web site.

Astroturfing:

Describes formal public relations projects that deliberately seek to engineer the impression of spontaneous grassroots behavior. The goal is the appearance of independent public reaction to a politician, political group, product, service, event, or similar entities by centrally orchestrating the behavior of many diverse and geographically distributed individuals.

Asynchronous Interaction:

Online discussions that occur independent of time or location in which participants send messages to a central location (e.g. a discussion forum). These messages are archived for later retrieval from other participants. Examples of asynchronous interaction include web based bulletin boards and email.

Atom:

A form of programming for Web sites or blogs that feeds the content to end-users rather than requiring them to return to the site for updates.

Back Channel:

Communication, such as email or instant message, that is sent personally to one or more individuals as opposed to being sent to a public conferencing forum. Back channel is rarely documented, but is a major component in online interactions.

Blogosphere:

All blogs, or the blogging community. Also called blogistan or, more rarely, blogspace.

Blogroll:

A list within a blog, usually in a vertical menu along the side, that links to other blogs.

Blog:

A Web site (or Web log) in which items are posted on a regular basis and displayed with the newest at the top. An online journal that mixes candor, informality, opinion, and links to third-party information. It is easy to update, requires no programming, and allows readers to add their own comments.

Buzz Marketing:

A viral marketing technique that attempts to make each encounter with a "prospect" a personal, spontaneous interaction instead of a hard sell. Techniques often include using influential opinion leaders to spark a word-of-mouth campaign within their sphere of influence.

CGM:

Consumer-generated media (CGM) describes word-of-mouth behavior that exists on the Internet. Typically, CGM encompasses opinions, experiences, advice and commentary about products, brands, companies and services — usually informed by personal experience — that exist in consumer-created postings on Internet discussion boards, forums, Usenet newsgroups and blogs.

Crowdsourcing:

Based on open-source software, Crowdsourcing is a technique in which a task is broadcast to a wide network of participants. The best results from the assigned task are rewarded by moving ahead to the next step of the overall project.

E-Learning:

Also know as Distance Learning, is a type of education where individuals work on independently from any Internet connected location and communicate with faculty and other students via e-mail, electronic forums, videoconferencing and other forms of computer-based communication.

Feed:

Also known as webfeeds or blog feeds, a feed is a document that contains content items, often summaries of stories or blog posts, that include web links to longer versions. Feeds are subscribed to directly by users with aggregators or feed readers (see definition above) that combine the contents of multiple web feeds for display on a single screen or series of screens.

Folksonomy:

A collaboratively generated, open-ended labeling system that enables Internet users to categorize content such as Web pages, online photographs, and Web links. The freely chosen labels — called tags — help to improve search engine effectiveness because content is categorized using a familiar, accessible, and shared vocabulary.

Link Bait:

Any content or feature within a Web site that is interesting enough to catch the viewers’ attention. Link Bait “baits” viewers to link to the Web site from other Web sites. This is often used as a tactic to improve SEO.

Link Blitz:

A targeted initiative to generate inbound links to a Web site or blog.

Link Blogs:

A blog intended to share weblinks, typically found on a personal Web site or blog.

Mash-Up:

A Web site or Web application that seamlessly combines content from more than one source into an integrated experience. Content used in mashups is typically sourced from a third party via a public interface or API. Other methods of sourcing content for mashups include Web feeds (e.g. RSS or Atom) and JavaScript.

Microcasting:

The description of small, focused audio and video programs delivered directly to a specialized audience on a program-by-program basis rather than a channel-by-channel basis. As opposed to broadcasting, a microcast is generally niche programming that users can subscribe to via many delivery and display devices.

Moblog:

A blog created through input from mobile devices such as PDAs or phones. They may also include photos from mobile camera phones.

Newsreader:

Browser-like window that allows readers to shop for and subscribe to different content providers (using RSS) and aggregate all the feeds into the browser.

Open Source:

Open source describes the principles and methodologies used to promote open access to the production and design process of a good, product or resource. Open source allows users to create user-generated content (see definition below) through incremental effort or collaboration.

OPML:

Outline Processor Markup Language is an XML format for outlines. Originallydeveloped as a native file format for an outliner application, it has since been adopted for other uses, the most common being to exchange lists of RSS feeds between RSS aggregators.

Podcast:

Audio content similar to blogs than can be downloaded to iPods or other MP3 players.

RSS:

Really Simple Syndication. A form of programming that allows end-users to subscribe to Web sites or blogs and have updates fed to their Newsreader automatically. The content can be anything from small bits of information to press releases and entire blogs.

Seeding:

Posting an initial message or series of messages in a discussion space to initiative a conversation.

SEM:

Search Engine Marketing.

• Search engine advertising: Paying the search engine for a guaranteed high ranking or an ad to accompany search results (pay per click advertising).

• Search engine optimization: Modifying a Web site’s structure and content to be easily read and understood by search engine software. This improves a site’s ranking in keyword searches.

• Paid inclusion: Paying a search engine for a guaranteed listing in their natural search index.

SEO:

Search Engine Optimization. A set of methods aimed at improving the ranking of a Web site in search engine listings. The term also refers to an industry of consultants who carry out optimization projects on behalf of clients' sites.

Social Media:

A common term used to encompass the current Web trends, online tools and available platforms that allow users to share information, opinions and experiences with other users.

Social Bookmarking:

Using the technique of Folksonomy (see definition above), Social Bookmarking has become a popular way to store, classify and share search links with other Web sites and blogs.

Social Computing:

The use of social software, and thus represents a growing trend of ICT usage concerned with tools that support social interaction and communication.

Social Intermediaries:

Resources such as Digg and del.icio.us, allow users to collect and submit links to news, Web sites, and other media the are rated by other users.

Tag Cloud:

A visual depiction of content tags used on a website. Selecting a single tag within a tag cloud will generally lead to a collection of items that are associated with that tag.

Tags:

Tags are basically used as categories or subjects in Web logs. Tagging makes it easier for people – and blog search engines – to organize and look for information in the right places.

Thread:

A series of posts on a single topic.

Trackback:

A piece of programming that shows a blogger who is linking to their blog and delivers snippets of what they said.

User Generated Content:

Various kinds of media content that is produced or primarily influenced by end-users. Content can include incremental individual efforts or collaboration (e.g. co-creation) on goods, products or resources.

Vblog or Vlog:

Video blog. A blog that uses video as its primary content. The video is linked to a post and is usually accompanied by supporting text, images, and additional metadata to provide context.

VGM:

Video Game Music (VGM) is a audio format for multiple video game platforms, such as Sega’s Master System, Game Gear, Mega Drive/Genesis, SG-1000 Mark III, and possibly many others in the future.

Web 2.0:

Refers to a second generation of services available on the World Wide Web that let people collaborate and share information online. In contrast to the first generation, Web 2.0 gives users an experience closer to desktop applications than the traditional static Web pages.

Webring:

A is a collection of Web sites pulled from various locations the Internet that are joined in a circular, ring-like structure that links together a group of sites with the same theme. Each Web site included in a Webring has a common navigation bar that contains links to the previous and next site within the Webring. Used as a SEO technique, the purpose of the Webring is to allow more visitors to reach the related sites with more ease and efficiency.

Widget:

A third party item that can be embedded in a web page and executed within any separate Web page without requiring additional compilation. A widget can be compared to a plug-in in desktop operations.

Wikis:

From the Hawaiian term for ‘quick’, this is a form of Web site that allows readers to edit and contribute content directly. It is an open, collaborative site on the Web.

WOM:

Word of Mouth. The passing of information by verbal means, especially recommendations, but also general information, in an informal, person-to-person manner, rather than by mass media, advertising, organized publication, or traditional marketing. Word of mouth is typically considered a spoken communication, although Web dialogue such as blogs, message boards, and emails are often now included in the definition.

WYSIWYG:

An acronym for "What You See is What You Get", WYSIWYG refers to a system in which the content view in the editing phase appears very similar to the final product view. WYSIWYG software, like word processor, optimizes the screen display for that particular type of output, like a printer. The software often emulates the resolution of the output in order to get as close as possible to WYSIWYG. This allows users to format content without requiring specific knowledge ofthe code.

Sources: Ogilvy PR and Centric, Net Lingo, Wikipedia