Members can also download this glossary for free as an ebook from the download area.

If you have a suggestion for words to add. Please post it to the discussion forum or tell me about it using the contact us form. Thank you!

A

@Reply: (Pronounced "At-reply") On Twitter, the practice of addressing or responding to another user by prefacing the reply with the format @username, thus ensuring that said user sees the reply. Sample sentence, "I sent you an @reply on Twitter, did you see it?"

Aggregation: A collection of syndicated feeds. For example, the Facebook news page is an aggregation of the status and activity feeds of all of your Facebook friends. Sample sentence, "Without aggregation I'd never be able to keep up with all of the web sites I regularly visit."

AJAX: Acronym for "Asynchronous JavaScript and XML," a group of client-side web development techniques and languages used to program interactive web applications. Sample sentence, "This user interface was developed using AJAX."

App: Short for "application," refers generally to any piece of user-friendly computer software developed to perform a specific function. Since the introduction of the iPhone, "app" has evolved to refer specifically to software that can be downloaded for use on smart phones. Sample sentence, "My iPhone has an app that turns my phone into a compass."

Avatar: A small, usually square, image used to represent you on message boards and social networks. It generally appears next to your username to help other users identify you. Sample sentence, "I'd recognize that user's avatar anywhere."

B

Bliki: A blend of "blog" and "wiki," also known as a "wikiblog," it combines features from both in that posts appear on the front page in reverse chronological order, like a blog, and editing is done in the style of a wiki. Sample sentence, "With so many contributors, we've decided to go with a bliki format instead of a blog for the web site."

Blog: An online written record kept in reverse chronological order. Sample sentence, "Blogs began as personal writings but are marketing tools for businesses now too."

Blog Reader: An application that aggregates syndication feeds of blog subscriptions. Sample sentence, "I subscribed to Jenny's blog in my blog reader, so now I never miss an update."

Blogger: 1. A person who operates or contributes to a blog. 2. A free blogging platform offered by Google. Sample sentence, "Tim is a professional blogger who has a movie blog on Blogger."

Blogroll: A list of links to blogs of note, typically found in the sidebar of a blog or web site. Sample sentence, "Would you please add my blog to your blogroll?"

C

CAPTCHA: An anti-spam utility on web forms that requires the user to prove that they are a human being and not a robot by deciphering hard-to-read text and entering the results. Sample sentence: "I tried to leave a comment on her blog, but I couldn't read the CAPTCHA text and it wouldn't let me post."

Chicklet: A small button that can be included in a blog post or online article that readers can click to send the post to a social networking or bookmarking site. Sample sentence, "She added a chicklet to all of her blog posts to make it easier for readers to save them to Del.icio.us."

Creative Commons License: An alternative to copyright that allows the creator of a work to grant permission for others to copy, distribute or alter the work under specific terms of agreement, without giving up ownership of the work. Sample sentence, "This Creative Commons license says that I can use this photo on my web site as long as I give credit to the photographer with a link to her Flickr account."

Crowdfunding: The practice of asking a large group of people or a community to financially support a project or cause through voluntary micropayments. Sample sentence, "Sheila is able to support herself through crowdfunding of her online comic strip."

Crowdsourcing: The practice of outsourcing a task to a large group of people or a community, typically in the hope that members of the crowd will volunteer their time, resources and expertise to help you accomplish the task. Sample sentence, "Barbara couldn't afford to hire a professional to redesign her popular blog, but after crowdsourcing the project to her readers, they were able to build her a professional-level blog free of charge."

CSS: Short for Cascading Style Sheets (CSS). CSS is important to webpages too. This type of code is used to tell the browser how to make the webpage look appealing. Sample sentence, "Cascading Style Sheets is a big, fancy name but it really only means the directions for how to display the webpage so it looks pretty."

D

Del.icio.us: A social bookmarking site that allows you to create a list of bookmarked web pages that can be accessed from anywhere, and that can be shared with other users. Sample sentence, "This blog post received a lot of traffic from people bookmarking it on Del.icio.us."

Digg: A social linking site that allows users to recommend content on the web. Recommended links are then voted on by other users to either promote the link or remove it from the site. Sample sentence, "Will you please Digg my article to help it become more popular?"

Domain Name: An internet address used to help identify particular web pages. Sample sentence, "I want to purchase the domain name CareerTipsBlog.com."

Dynamic Content: content typically residing on the front page of a blog or web site that is updated on a regular basis. Sample sentence, "To attract more visitors to your web site, you should offer dynamic content that keeps them coming back for more."

E

Ebook: A book, or booklet, that has been electronically published in a downloadable format. Sample sentence, "I don't like lugging several books around while I'm on vacation, so I download ebooks to read on my laptop."

Embed Code: Code that is generated on some social media sites, like SlideShare.net, that allows you to put content such as audio and video on your webpage by simply copying the embed code and pasting it where you want the media to show up. Sample sentence, "I will copy and paste this YouTube embed code so this cool video can be displayed on my blog."

E-commerce: Short for "Electronic Commerce", describes the practice of buying or selling goods or services over the Internet. Sample sentence, "Kim set up an e-commerce shop to sell tee-shirts of her dad's crazy sayings."

Enterprise 2.0: Refers to the practice of adopting social software for business and commercial purposes. Sample sentence, "We've increased our target market through our web site since adopting an Enterprise 2.0 model."

F

Feed Aggregator: See Blog Reader

Flickr: A social photo-sharing site that allows users to upload and share their photos, as well as to comment on, annotate and distribute the photos of other users. Sample sentence, "I uploaded my wedding pictures on Flickr so all of my friends and family could see them."

Facebook: A social networking site that is engaging a huge amount of users. Lots of people are connecting with people from their past and finding out what old friends are up to. It is well known for being the social media site for real life friends who you have actually met in person. Connecting friends so that you can keep in touch with what they're up to and see pictures and links they are sharing is what it is all about. Sample sentence, "Are you on Facebook? I'll friend you."

Friending: On some social networks, particularly Facebook, this is the term for adding a user to your network, or "Friends List". Sample sentence, "I'm friending all of my old high school classmates on Facebook."

G

Geotagging: The process of tagging online media, such as a photograph or video, with relevant geographical information such as the latitude and longitude of the place where a photo was taken. Sample sentence, "Ron ran a search on Flickr for all of the photos that were geotagged in his hometown."

Google Alerts: Notifications that can be sent to a user, via e-mail or RSS feed, to let them know when an article, news item or blog post appears online that relates to a specified keyword. Sample sentence, "I set up a Google Alert for all news headlines about my favorite sports team."

Google Analytics: Code that you can add to your website to track the number of people visiting your site. You can also learn a little bit about how they spend their time when visiting your website. Sample sentence, "Google Analytics reports that I have had 80 people visit my site today with an average stay of 8.25 minutes."

H Host: A company that provides the service of storing files, data, and applications so they can be made available on the internet. Sample sentence, "Now that I have a domain name, I need to find a host before I can build my website."

HTML: An acronym for Hypertext Markup Language (HTML). HTML is the lingo of the web. It is code used to tell the browser the structure of a webpage. Sample sentence, "HTML is the foundation of webpages and is broken down to two main parts: the head and the body."

I

IM: Short for "Instant Message," a form of online chat conducted in real-time over an Instant Messaging program such as AOL Instant Messenger. Sample sentence, "I'll IM you to discuss the changes you asked for."

L

Link Farm: A group of web sites that exist primarily for the purpose of linking reciprocally to each other in an attempt to manipulate SEO rankings. However, Google's SEO algorithms have been altered to identify link-farming practices, and as a result, participation in a link farm can actually lower a web site's ranking. Sample sentence, "Be careful not to have too many reciprocal links on your site; you don't want Google to mistake it for a link farm."

Linkbait: Internet lingo for a controversial blog post or article that appears to have been created primarily for the purpose of creating a stir in order to drive Internet traffic and provoke people to link to the post. Sample sentence, "That blog post slamming American Idol is obvious linkbait."

LinkedIn: A professional networking site that allows members to create professional profiles detailing their professional expertise and work history, to be recommended by previous employers or clients, to develop professional business contacts, and to seek employment. Sample sentence, "When Sam heard the rumors that layoffs were imminent, he made sure his LinkedIn profile was up-to-date."

List Building: Refers to capturing contact information from visitors to your website. Visitors volunteer this info in trade for a freebie you give away or because the resonate with your message and want to hear more from you. Sample sentence, "I need to build a list of people to send my newsletter to so that when they need career coaching they know who to call."

M

Mashup: The blending of two or more seemingly disparate items to create a new item, for example, laying the dialogue track from one movie over scenes from a different movie to tell a new story, sometimes for the purposes of parody. Sample sentence, "That mashup of Star Wars and 'All My Children' is the funniest thing I've seen all day."

Microblog: A web log made up of short, usually single-sentence, entries. Twitter and Facebook's status updates are prime examples of microblogs. Sample sentence, "His blog is really more of a microblog, since it's just a series of links and one-liners."

Micropayments: Small, usually voluntary payments made for digital content or in support of a cause. Sample sentence, "Jill asked her readers to make a voluntary micropayment of one dollar for her ebook, and ended up with over a hundred dollars."

Moblogging: A shortened form of "mobile blogging," the practice of posting to a blog from a mobile device. Sample sentence, "Kelly is moblogging the concert from her iPhone."

O

Open-Source: The practice of making source materials open and available to developers, often resulting in community-developed products that are usually offered to consumers free of charge. Sample sentence, "I've replaced all of my Microsoft applications with open source software that does the same thing."

P

PDF: Acronym stands for Portable Document Format. PDFs are popular now for several reasons. One of the main reasons is that PDF is a good way to keep others from being able to change or copy your writing unless you specifically allow edits. Also, the file size is smaller but the document quality is high. Important too is that the software needed to read a PDF file is free, and the PDF files can be read regardless of the reader's computer type such as PC or Mac. A good way for a career coach to use the PDF file type is to write a report or book in MS Word or Pages (for Mac) then print the file as a PDF to offer it on their website as an ebook. Sample sentence, "Please email that file to me as a PDF attachment."?

Permalink: Short for "permanent link," a link to the static URL of a blog entry, comment, or other web page item that is good long after the item falls off of the front page of the blog or site. Sample sentence, "Be sure to bookmark the permalink for that blog entry to make sure you can find it again."

Ping: In blogging, a mechanism that lets servers and aggregators know that a blog has been updated. Sample sentence, "My blog platform automatically pings Technorati whenever I update my blog."

Plug-in: A small software application that "plugs in" to a larger application in order to increase functionality or customize the user experience. Sample sentence, "My web browser's Paypal plug-in makes shopping online so much more convenient."

Podcast: A blend of "pod" (derived from "iPod") and "broadcast", a podcast is an episodic production released as a series of downloadable audio files that can be subscribed to via RSS syndication and played on an MP3 device. A typical podcast is reminiscent of a talk-radio show, although podcasting is also used for more creative endeavors such as self-published audiobooks. Sample sentence, "I usually listen to my favorite podcasts during my work commute."

Publish on Demand: A way of digital printing that enables individuals to have books published outside of the traditional publishing companies. Characterized by getting to print quickly and with a small number of books printed at a time. Sample sentence, "Print on demand is a good option for authors to self-publish their books."

R

RSS: Short for "really simple syndication," RSS is a web feed format used for syndicating frequently-updated web content, such as blog entries or news headlines, allowing users to subscribe to receive updates via Blog Readers and Feed Aggregators. Sample sentence, "Click here to subscribe to my RSS feed."

S

SEO: Short for "Search Engine Optimization," SEO describes a variety techniques used to improve a web site's rankings in Google search results. Sample sentence, "I spend an hour each week generating links to improve my blog's SEO."

Skype: A free software application that provides internet telephone, instant messaging, and videoconferencing services. Users can communicate with other Skype users via the application free of charge, or can use Skype to call non-user telephones for a fee. Sample sentence, "Let's set up a Skype conference to kick off this group project."

SMS: Short for "Short Message Service", the mobile communication component that allows text messaging. Sample sentence, "My credit company sends SMS alerts to my mobile phone when I'm in danger of going over my limit."

Social Bookmarking: Bookmarking web pages on sites, such as Del.icio.us, that allow the links to be tagged with keywords and shared with other users. Sample sentence, "My web site receives a lot of traffic via social bookmarking."

Social Media: Media designed to facilitate and encourage social interaction between users. Examples include internet forums, blogs with comment threads, social networking, bookmarking and media sharing sites such as Flickr or YouTube, and microblogging sites such as Twitter. Sample sentence, "Kenny stays in touch with all of his friends and family through social media."

Social Networking: The practice of building a network of both personal and professional contacts through the use of social networking sites such as Facebook or LinkedIn. Sample sentence, "Social networking helped Jim reconnect with his best friend from junior high, find a couch to sleep on during his trip to New York, and land an interview for his dream job in Los Angeles."

Spam: Internet lingo originally used to describe unsolicited e-mail, the meaning has since evolved to describe any type of unwelcome online communication used to sell or promote something. Can also be applied to the practice of updating Twitter, Facebook, a discussion forum or blog feed so often as to create difficulty for other users. Sample sentence, "I'm fed up with comment spammers leaving irrelevant linkspam in my blog comments."

T

Tag Cloud: An arrangement of tags, typically found in a blog sidebar, that forms a visual "word cloud," with the size of each tag denoting the frequency of its use. Sample sentence, "One glance at this blog's tag cloud tells me that they write a lot of posts about personal finance."

Tag: A key word or phrase used to categorize a blog entry, online article or bookmark item for the purpose of grouping together entries that relate to a particular topic and helping readers narrow down their searches. Sample sentence, "That blog post on dog grooming is tagged under both 'dogs' and 'pets'."

Technorati: A search engine that specializes in indexing blogs and ranking them by popularity and relevance. Sample sentence, "Technorati currently ranks my health food blog at number 230 on its list of health food blogs."

Teleseminar: A seminar conducted over a teleconferencing bridge line rather than in person, usually for the purposes of training, motivation, self-promotion or group sales. Sample sentence, "My career coach conducts weekly teleseminars to help motivate her clients."

Trackback: A notification received by a blogger or web page author when another site links to their article or web page. Sample sentence, "This blog post must be popular; it's already received almost 50 trackbacks."

Tumblr: A simple, customizable micro-blogging platform that allows users to post images and video or audio files in addition to text. Sample sentence, "If it's too big to tweet and too short for a substantial blog post, I'll post it to my Tumblr blog."

Tweet: Each individual entry to a Twitter stream. Sample sentence, "I found Anthony Robbins on Twitter, I will send him a tweet."

Twitter: A mini-blog system that is quick becoming a networking essential. It is "mini" because each entry must be less than 140 characters long. Sample sentence, "I'm going over to Twitter.com to create my free account."

TypePad: A fee-based blogging service offered by the company Six Apart, based on their proprietary blogging platform Movable Type, marketed to bloggers who lack the technical know-how to develop their own blogs. Sample sentence, "Ken hosts his blog on Typepad."

U

User Created Content: Content on a web site that is created and provided by the site's users, sometimes for a small payment but often on a voluntary basis. Sample sentence, "Web sites like eHow and Associated Content rely primarily on user created content."

V

Viral: Refers to the rapid popularization of web content as it spreads through social networks and blogs. Sample sentence, "The singing cat video was posted in the morning, it went viral by noon, and by six it made the national news."

Vlog: Short for "video blog," a form of regularly updated content that uses video as its primary medium. Sample sentence, "Cheryl produces a weekly vlog on gardening tips."

VoIP: Acronym that stands for "Voice over Internet Protocol", typically refers to telephonic or voice communications conducted over the Internet. Sample sentence, "I connected a VoIP phone to my computer to cut down on long-distance phone bills."

W

Webcast: See "Podcast."

Webinar: Similar to a teleseminar, but conducted over the web via the use of web-conferencing technology. Sample sentence, "Matt conducted a three-part webinar series on personal finance."

Widget: A portable, pre-programmed web application that can be easily embedded into a blog or web page to provide specific functionality without any programming knowledge or ability on the part of the blog or web page administrator. Sample sentence, "I installed a widget on my blog to display random photos from my Flickr account."

Wiki: A web site made up of easily created and edited interlinked web pages. A wiki can be collaborative, allowing multiple users to create pages and make changes. Typical uses include knowledge sharing and information management. Sample sentence, "I started a wiki to help keep track of all of my different projects and goals."

Wikipedia: A collaborative, web-based encyclopedia of collective knowledge that uses a wiki format to organize and share information. Entries can be created and edited by the site's users, but are subject to rules regarding citation and presentation, as well as to agreement by other users. Sample sentence, "We donated our old encyclopedia set to the library now that we use Wikipedia for most of our research."

WordPress: A popular blogging service and platform. Wordpress.com is a free blogging service offered by the developers of the Wordpress platform. The platform itself is an open source blog database and management system that has come to be widely used as a Content Management System for non-blogging web sites. Sample sentence, "Kurt has both a Wordpress blog and a portfolio web site that runs on Wordpress."

Wordpress Theme: A web site or blog layout template designed to run on Wordpress. Thousands of pre-made Wordpress themes exist and can be used free of charge. Premium themes require a licensing fee to be paid, but offer higher functionality and more reliable customer support than free themes. Additionally, themes can be custom-built, or pre-made themes can be altered to achieve a custom look. Sample sentence, "I'm tired of the way my blog looks; time to change my Wordpress theme."

Y

YouTube: A social media site that allows users to upload, share, view and comment on video content. It began as a platform for sharing home movies and amateur videos, but has since grown to include professionally-produced content including music videos, film trailers and films and television series that have fallen into public domain. Sample sentence, "I found a good instructional web design video on YouTube."