Friday 2 September 2011

Social Media Glossary

Social Media Glossary

Social media represents a new form and function of communication — it also offers a new lexicon. While some terms will change or evolve to reflect the constantly changing technology, we present some essential social media terminology here. Click "learn more" to watch simple videos explaining the terms.
  • blog.  Short name for a web log; an online journal that typically includes the author’s personal profile and entries, and may also include photos and videos. Learn more.
  • Delicious.  An online service for saving your Internet bookmarks, tagging them, sharing with others, and seeing what others are bookmarking. See social bookmarking.
  • Facebook.  An online social network that began exclusively on college campuses and is now used extensively by the general public. Individual users create a personal profile, invite friends to view it, and use various features to communicate, form groups, play games, support causes, and more. Facebook uses one profile template, which creates a uniform, clean look across the network of users.
  • Flickr.  An online photo-sharing network where users create a short personal profile, post photos, and make comments; they can also create groups (for events or organizations), invite friends, organize photo albums, and allow group members to post photos. Photos can be tagged, which allows others to find photos based on the content. Learn More.
  • FriendFeed.  A versatile social network service that facilitates conversation and aggregation of RSS feeds. See lifestreaming. Learn More.
  • friending.  The act of inviting (or accepting an invitation from) someone else on a social network to be a "friend" by connecting profiles for mutual viewing.
  • lifestreaming.  The practice of collecting an individual's disjointed online presence in one central location or site; brings photos, videos, bookmarks, and microblog or blog posts from the person into one place via RSS. Examples include Friendfeed and Tumblr.
  • messaging.  A feature within many social networking sites that allows users to send messages to each others’ in-boxes within the site or to chat in real time; allows for communication without sharing e-mail addresses.
  • microblog.  A web service that allows subscribers to broadcast short messages to other subscribers. Twitter is one example. Learn more.
  • MySpace.  An online social network similar to Facebook, but with more design and artistic freedom to create a customized look for your profile; generally caters to artists and bands. As with Facebook, MySpace allows users to “friend” each other and create groups.
  • podcast.  Digital audio files for users to download and play back later; often offered as a syndicated feed that users can subscribe to via RSS or iTunes. Learn more.
  • profile.  A personalized page that an individual creates on a social network site; typically provides space for a photo, contact information, and a variety of other personal details.
  • RSS feed.  "Really simple syndication" that automatically broadcasts updated content to everyone who subscribes to it; the flow of data to subscribers is called a "feed." Learn More.
  • social bookmarking.  An increasingly popular way to locate, classify, and rank resources through shared lists of user-created Internet bookmarks. Users store lists of personally interesting Internet resources, which can be made publicly accessible; resources can be classified with informally assigned user-defined keywords (or tags). Examples are Delicious and Diigo.
  • social network.  An online community where individuals create a personal profile and search for, and stay connected to, friends. Examples are Facebook and MySpace. Learn more.
  • tagging.  Assignment of keywords to describe content (such as photos, videos, blog posts, or websites); often used in social bookmarking to help users find relevant content.
  • Twitter.  A popular social networking service that facilitates real-time personal "status updates" through short broadcasts (up to 140 characters) to other subscribers. Users connect with each other by "following" or having "followers." See microblog. Learn more.
  • YouTube.  An online network used for posting videos (private, invitation-only, or open to the public) and commenting on them; allows members to create a short profile, but almost all content beyond the basics takes the form of video posts and comments. Users can create groups and “friend” each other.
  • web log.  See blog.
  • widget.  A small block of content on a web page with a specific purpose (such as providing weather forecasts or news) that constantly updates itself typically via RSS. Widgets make it easy to add dynamic content to a website or blog.
This material was adapted from the VISTA Guide to Social Media.

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