Web 2.0 Glossary
Demystifying Web 2.0
If you're not sure what "Web 2.0" is, don't fret. It's less of a technological revolution and more of a re-labeling.
According to the Wikipedia, Web 2.0 is "...a perceived second generation of web-based communities and hosted services which that aim to facilitate creativity, collaboration, and sharing between users." In the '80s, we would have called this "America Online."
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To help you stay informed as the definition of Web 2.0 evolves, we've created the following Web 2.0 glossary (updated April 28, 2008):
| AJAX |
n. An acronym for "Asynchronous Javascript and XML". This refers to a collection of technologies that allow browser-based applications and web pages to appear to retrieve information more quickly and without having to refresh a web page. They do this by continuing to download information in the background, while the user pauses to read, look at photos, or otherwise stop interacting with the application. |
| Avatar |
n. An avatar is a digital representation of an individual in a virtual reality environment. An often cited example is Second Life®, an application that allows users to mingle with people from around the world while cloaked behind a persona of their choosing. Second Life users can also write their own computer programs to further customize their avatars. |
| Blog |
n. Short for "web log," a blog is a website written by an individual. Blog entries are typically displayed in reverse chronological order with the most recent information displayed first.
Blog popularity exploded when free software allowed people with no web skills to create sophisticated websites which included text, video, audio, and other media. As of April 2007, there were about 112 million blogs.
Blog software sometimes provides a method to submit comments to the author, subscribe to content updates via RSS, and bookmark specific blog entries. |
| Blogosphere |
n. The collective name for the millions of blogs on the Web, sometimes used by traditional media to gauge public reaction to an event. |
| CAPTCHA |
n. This isn't a Web 2.0 term, but CAPTCHAs are common on many Web 2.0 websites. A CAPTCHA is an automated challenge-response method of determining whether a website visitor is a human. Typically, it uses a graphic depicting a string of letters or numbers that are skewed or otherwise deformed which the website visitor must then interpret and type out. |
| Chat |
n. Software which that allows pairs or groups of people to discuss topics by typing; similar to a phone conversation. |
| Collective intelligence |
n. Collective intelligence describes how the grouping of opinions, observations, or impressions – if collected in a way that does not introduce bias -- leads to better information. For example, if 100 individuals are asked to estimate how many jelly beans are in a jar, the average of their guesses is likely to be highly accurate – and much more accurate than the group’s estimate would have been. Similarly, if a group of 10,000 movie-goers reviews a particular film, the group’s consensus on that movie is more likely to be reflective of its audience appeal than the comments of any one reviewer.
Collective intelligence is a fundamental strength of a site like Wikipedia: Millions of users who are continuously reviewing a large number of entries can be even more accurate than the small group of experts that edits traditional encyclopedias. |
| Directory |
n. A directory is basically a list. This isn't necessarily a Web 2.0 term, but it's often used to differentiate between human ranking of content relevance versus ranking done via a computer program. The benefit to this is that classification can be more accurate, but at the cost of scalability; it's much easier for a computer program to evaluate billions of Web pages every week. |
| Discussion Group |
n. One of the oldest methods of sharing ideas online, this software allows people to post questions and accept responses from anyone with access to that discussion group. A question and the answers to that question are referred to as a "discussion thread" or simply a "thread." Discussion groups are also called bulletin boards, message boards, internet forums, and web forums among other names. |
| Mash Up |
n. A digital file whose content comes primarily from other sources. This isn't necessarily a Web 2.0 term, but it's often used to describe blogs, bulletin boards, and other types of websites that rely almost entirely on text, video, etc. from other sources. The old-fashioned term for this would be "pastiche." |
| Messaging |
n. Also called "instant messaging" or "IM". Popularized by AOL. Allows people to communicate by typing in real -time, or by leaving a message for the recipient to respond to when they become available. |
| Permalink |
n. Short for "Permanent Link." Permalinks are a method to link to a particular piece of information which may later change locations. For example, a blog posting may be moved to another page as newer postings are added. |
| Posting, or Post |
n. A posting (or post) is information added to a website. For example, if someone adds new information to their blog, that would be their latest posting. |
| Rich Internet Application (RIA) |
n. A browser-based computer program with a user interface that is more enjoyable to use. This takes several forms (more interesting visual effects, fast information retrieval, multimedia) which in itself isn't new; however, it's become commonplace for many Web 2.0 website users, so they begin to expect it. and differentiate websites that do use these techniques with those that don't. |
| RSS |
n. Short for "Really Simple Syndication", RSS allows publishers (for example, blog authors) to distribute updated content to their subscribers by modifying one file. The benefit is that subscribers can have updated information sent to them vs. visiting multiple websites.
Most modern Web browsers (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari) can be used to view RSS updates. There are also dozens of standalone RSS readers, such as Bloglines.
FYI: There are multiple versions of RSS with no clear standard. "Atom" is a similar content syndication format.
Step-by-Step Instructions:
Subscribing to an RSS feed using Internet Explorer 7
These instructions also apply to most software applications that can read RSS feeds.
| Step 1: Look for an orange RSS icon or a "subscribe" link, and click on it. |
| Step 2: You'll be presented with a list of what content is available and a "Subscribe to this feed" option; click on it. |
Step 3: As new information is posted and the RSS feed, links to new information will automatically appear in Internet Explorer, saving you from having to return to that website. |
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| Search Engine |
n. This isn't really a Web 2.0 term, but it's worth understanding the difference between this and a directory or collaborative tagging. A search engine is software that visits one or more Web pages, looks at the content, and ranks the content based on a pre-defined algorithm. Directories and search results based on collaborative tagging depend on human's assessing the relevance of content. |
| Social Networking |
n. A method of connecting people with similar interests. Prime examples of this are LinkedIn and Plaxo in business environments, and Friendster, Facebook, and mySpace in social situations (although there has been some crossover). The power of social networking comes from the ability to search for and connect to people based on some aspect of how they describe themselves, and then gaining access to that person's friends and their interests. How people describe themselves and reality are not always the same thing. |
| Tagging |
n. A method to identify, rank, and share information. This then allows others to locate information based on how an individual or group has tagged and ranked information.
If you remember the original version of Yahoo!®, a human ranked the relevance of each and every website listed. Popular online companies such as Amazon.com® and Netflix® both employ user ranking in order to help others within the same community make decisions. If most people like you enjoyed a product, the chances are that you will like it, too.
Tagging is also referred to as folksonomies, collaborative tagging, social classification, social bookmarking, social indexing, and social tagging. |
| User-generated content |
n. The concept of enabling a community of users—not some individual author—to create the content on a site; contribute to what’s already there; govern it by determining its accuracy, usefulness, and relevance; and ensure that the resource is updated as needed.
User-generated content is typified by information resources such as Wikipedia or YouTube.com. On these web sites, user-generated content is everything: take away the users, and there is no content. |
| Wiki |
n. Software that allows users to write, edit, link, and update websites themselves. They idea is that since there are multiple contributors, the information will be more objective and accurate.
The idea is similar to a discussion group, except that there is only one communally agreed upon answer to the original question, vs. multiple answers. The most famous example of a wiki is the Wikipedia. |
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WHITEPAPER
Learning 2.0: Using Web 2.0 to Create Effective Informal Learning
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