Did you know that, aside from the challenges that are presented by wikis, RSS feeds, blogs, vlogs and new media technologies, the very core of your brand's reputation is also
threatened by brandjacking, cybersquatting and e-mail phishing? And these Web 2.0 trends don't even take the full extent of the Semantic Web - what with all
of its XML, RDF and ontology - into consideration.
If just reading that paragraph set your head spinning, you're not alone. The digital revolution has presented communications professionals with a wealth of both challenges and
opportunities, but the first step in leveraging any new channel's power is to understand the language itself. There are many seemingly made-up expressions, strange word fusions,
and acronyms - and that's just scratching the surface. But, despite the likelihood that there will be a handful of new words between the time of writing and the publication of
this article, here is a jump-start on the words you need to know, whether you're a bona fide member of the digerati or just a good old-fashioned communicator.
Blog: A Web log that is composed of consumer-generated content and contains commentary that can be added to/altered; posts are listed in reverse chronological order,
with the most recent entry showing up first.
Blogger: A person who blogs.
Blogosphere: The collective online community of blogs.
Brandjacking: Committing online threats to brand reputations; using a reputable brand to drive traffic to a fraudulent site.
Cybersquatting: The unauthorized use of a brand name in a domain.
DRM: Digital rights management; technologies used by publishers or copyright owners to control access to or usage of digital data or hardware.
E-mail phishing: Using e-mail to entice unsuspecting consumers to click through a link to a Web site that may look as if it's operated by their bank or another financial
institution.
Flog: A fake blog usually used as a sales tool or marketing ploy; notable flogs include "Walmarting Across America."
Folksonomy: user-generated taxonomy used to categorize and retrieve Web content. Flickr and Digg are two widely used sites based on folksonomy.
HTML: Hypertext markup language; the predominant markup language for the creation of Web pages; provides a means to describe the structure of text-based information in a
document.
Mashup: A Web site or application that combines content from more than one source into an integrated experience.
Ontology: A layout of the detailed relationship among XML terms and RDF concepts.
Podcast: a combination of the words "iPod" and "broadcast;" a digital media file distributed over the Internet using syndication feeds.
Podcaster: The author of a podcast.
RDF: Resource description framework; a combination of a dictionary and a thesaurus for XML tags; allows the computer to understand the syntax of Web information.
RSS: Really simple syndication; users subscribe to content aggregators, which then feed them information from Web sites based on their chosen areas of interest.
Semantic Web: online software that enables computers to understand and interpret what words mean, in turn allowing them to find, share and integrate information more
easily.
Social networks: Online communities in which entities (individuals or businesses) are connected through one or more shared characteristics; commonly known examples
include MySpace, LinkedIn and Facebook.
Tag: A relevant keyword or search term that is assigned to a piece of online information, thus enabling keyword classification.
Vlog: A video blog.
VOIP: Voice-over Internet protocol; the routing of voice conversations over the Internet.
Web 2.0: The second generation of Web-based communities and services, as coined by O'Reilly Media in 2004.
Wiki: A Web site that allows all visitors to add, edit and change content, most commonly without registration.
XML: Extensible markup language; coding/tagging Web pages to allow computers to distinguish specific types of content. PRN
Note: These definitions were culled from BusinessWeek articles, wikipedia.org and online dictionaries.