Donagh Mc Sweeney

I’ve been noticing a lot of new words and phrases growing in popularity on social networks over the last few weeks. This seems to be extremely common on Twitter with people basically sticking “Tw” before any word to form their own. Twoto, twestival, Twebinar, it’s never ending!

Well here’s a list of some of the more common words that you’re going to come across on the new “Web 2.0″ internet.

API – An API (Application Programming interface) is an interface provided by developers/websites which allows others to tap into and interact with their services. If you’re not a developer then don’t worry about it!

App – An app (application or webapp) is a piece of software that adds functionality to a service. Apps are popular on social networking sites such as Bebo and Facebook while Apples App Store allows users to download apps to their iPhones.

Blog – A blog is basically a website! Blogs are usually personal websites where people express their views. Corporate blogs have become popular in recent times as organizations take to the web. People can view a blog and leave comments. If your blog is popular a lot of interaction will likely happen between people on your blog.

Blogesphere – The blogesphere is a term that refers to every blog on the internet as a whole.

Blogroll – A blogroll refers to the links that people put on their blogs, linking to other blogs.

DM – DM is a term coined by Twitter. It’s an abbreviation of the word ‘Direct Message”. If you want to send someone a private message then you send them a DM. E.g. DM @loopthing Looking forward to launching Loopthing.

Embed – When you take a video from a site such as YouTube and put it on your own website it’s called embedding.

Failwhale – When something goes wrong on Twitter users are greeted by an image of a great giant whale. Since its launch Twitter users have unfortunately being seeing all too many failures, hence the term Failwhale is used by users to refer to when things go wrong. The Failwhale has become somewhat part and part of Twitter.

Follower(s) – Another term born as a result of Twitter. When you want to link to someone on Twitter you are said to become one of their followers.

Hashtag – On Twitter specific topics can be identified using specific words that are preceded by the # symbol. You would use such a hashtag when engaging in a conversation with many people in order to allow everyone to follow the conversation.

Mashup – A mashup is basically the bringing together of a number of webpage or applications to form one.

Meme – A meme is a term used to refer to something that has gone ‘viral’ on the internet. It’s usually a catchphrase, topic or concept. A recent example of a meme is the Balloon Boy.

Microblogging – This is what Twitter is all about. Unlike blogs which can posts of limitless size, microblogs are limited to a specific amount of characters per post. Twitter is a microblog that allows 140 characters per post.

ReTweet (RT) – On Twitter you can take a ‘tweet’ that someone is after ‘tweeting’ and post it yourself. It is common courtesy to give acknowledgement to the original person that posted the message.  E.g. RT @DonaghMc Loopthing is a social network that allows business to grow their online presence.

There is no limit to the amount of ReTweets that can occur for the original post. In recent month, ‘Via’ has emerged as an alternative to the RT abbreviation.

SEO­ – I debated whether to include the next two, but here goes anyway. SEO is a term used mainly by web developers. It’s short for Search Engine optimization, which is the process of developing a website in a manner that search engines like Google, Yahoo and Bing will like. The aim of SEO is to make a website rise in ranking on a ‘SERP’.

SERP – Refers to a Search Engine Results Page, which is the page you see in Google, Yahoo or Bing when you search for a specific keyword(s).

Social bookmarking – Social bookmarking sites allow you to save bookmarks online, rather than in your browser. You can also recommend bookmarks to others and social bookmarking icons are found on most ‘Web 2.0’ websites today. Digg, Del.icio.us and StumleUpon are examples.  

Tag – A tag is a word used to describe a blog post, profile, media file, etc. They help to create an association between certain items.

Tag Cloud – A tag cloud is a gathering of ‘Tags’ in one area. Usually tag clouds display tags in different sizes, with the tag that is most popular appearing the largest size and the least popular the smallest size.

Trackback – A trackback is feature found on blogs. When a ‘blogger’ writes a post they may choose to send a trackback to another website/blog that was used as inspiration or for research on the post. The person on the other website/blog will receive the trackback and then decide if they wish to make it public or not.

Trending – Trending refers to hashtags/topics on Twitter that are the most popular at a certain time. The top 10 trending (popular) topics appear at the bottom right of a person’s Twitter page.

Tweep(s) – A tweep is yet another Twitter word. It refers to a person with a mutual following.

Tweet – A tweet is a post/message on Twitter.

Twitterati – Refers to celebrities on Twitter.

Twitosphere – Is a word used to refer to people on Twitter. Similar to ‘Blogesphere’.

Viral – When an item such as a video, image, catchphrase, event, etc takes over the internet and becomes gigantically popular is it said to go viral!

Web 2.0 – Is a term that refers to the new wave of development on the internet. Web 2.0 sites are said to be more dynamic, organized and stylish compared to the old.

Webinar - A webinar is meeting or conference that takes place over the internet. It’s usually organized with plenty of notice and is usually a one-way interaction. Like real life, some are free while others may charge.

Widget – A widget is a piece of code that you can take from one website and display on your own. They can be personalized to your own liking to an extent. Widgets usually display some changing information of some sort. MyBlogLog’s Recent Readers widget is one of the most popular out there.

Wiki – A wiki is a website that uses wiki software, allowing the easy creation and editing of any number o web pages.

Wordpress – Wordpress is a popular blogging platform. It’s allows bloggers to establish a website quickly with relatively ease using a number of templates and widgets.  This blog is using wordpress!

There’s many more out there so feel free to contribute!

Last night the web was captivated by a breaking story from Colorado. The story goes that apparently a 6-year-old boy had floated off in a homemade helium balloon and was flying uncontrollably across the American skies.

As you can imagine, panic ensued! All sorts of emergency services were mobilized, Denver airport was closed and even the army sent a UH-58 Kiowa helicopter and the mighty Black Hawk to assist! Live pictures were streamed across the American airwaves with most of the major networks following the story and the world was captivated.

With the instantaneous nature of Twitter millions jumped on the story with people expressing their shock while hoping for happy ending! Balloon Boy enveloped Twitter and much of the social web within an hour or so! And in what must be a Twitter first, the story was trending on Twitter under 8 separate tags such as Balloon Boy, #ballonboy and Colorado! Everywhere I went it was the same thing, the same story! It was quiet amazing to see.

After a 50 mile race through the skies the inevitable happened, Balloon Boy crashed. Tweet Tears were shed and shock set it! Was Balloon Boy dead? Injured? Traumatized? Well actually, none of the above! In fact Balloon Boy was actually never Balloon Boy at all! In fact he was actually at home, 50 miles away hiding his attic after receiving a scolding from his father! Mother f**cker!

The boy’s father, Richard Heene, said the family was tinkering with the balloon Thursday and that he scolded Falcon (Balloon Boy) for getting inside a compartment on the craft. He said Falcon’s brother had seen him inside the compartment before it took off and that’s why they thought he was in there when it launched.

It didn’t take long for a tone of viral videos, jokes and even T-Shirts to hit the web. You can now buy your own Balloon Boy T-shirt on Zazzle if you’re interested! Of the lot, CollegeHumour have one of the best videos out there on 50 mile chase across the skies!

[collegehumor 1923183 425 380] httpv://www.collegehumor.com/video:1923183 -> [collegehumor 1923183]

Today rumours have started to circle the web that the whole thing was one big hoax! And there might be some truth to the rumours with an interview on CNN raising all sorts of questions. Asked why he didn’t respond to his family calling his name, Falcon says, “you guys [his parents] said we did this for the show.” His parents, seemingly stunned by the answer, quickly try to change the story. Watch it for yourself!