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!

Social networking has become part and part of most of our lives over the last few years. What started off as a slight infatuation with the online world has become somewhat of an obsession for many. It’s not simply a “phase” people are  going through which will end sometime soon. It’s a ongoing trend affecting everyone these days and it hasn’t gone unnoticed by business leaders.

A new study by Robert Half Technology has found that many businesses are actively creating work policies in relation to the growing presence of online networking in their employees lives, yet the majority aren’t reacting positively!

The study, which was based on telephone interviews with more than 1,400 CEO’s across the US, has revealed that just over half of those asked have policies that completely ban their workforce from accessing sites such as Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, LinkedIn and Loopthing.

• Prohibited completely   -   54%
• Permitted for business purposes only   -   19%
• Permitted for limited personal use   -   16%
• Permitted for any type of personal use   -   10%
• Don’t know/no answer   -   1%

The reasons cited by those on the majority side indicate that most tend to see social networks as a distraction, something that diverts their employees attention away from more pressing and important matters.

The study also reveals that nearly 1/5 of businesses believe that social networking can be a positive thing, but only for work purposes.

It’s not hard to see what the majority of organisations are not allowing employees engage online. Social networking sites are pretty secure on the technical side of things, but  it’s the people who use them that are a cause for concern within an organisation. Productivity, viruses, phishing, bandwidth usage, the disclosure of private information and brand damage are just some of the points that a company would think about when choosing to either allow access or implement a social media ban.

Software such as WebSense can be used to monitor web activity, so remember the next time you’re dying to update you’re online status, check first whether you’re company allows you to do so or you could end up in hot water. Or just use your iPhone!

Wordpress plug-ins are new territory for me. Yesterday one went awry and the blog was down for a few hours. Whoops! It’s a learning process I guess!

There are thousands of plug-ins out there that allow you to customise your blog to your hearts content. They are by far one of the main reasons why Wordpress has become the major powerhouse in blogging circles!

Today I came across an attractive plug-in that allows you add some stylish social icons to your blog. It’s called Sexybookmarks. Every blogger wants to be able to share their posts with the web at large, and this is just the way to do it!

The installation through the Wordpress Admin page is extremely simple. There’s a whole load of social icons you can choose to add to your posts and/or pages such as Twitter, Del.ic.ios, Facebook, Mixx, Newsvine, Digg, etc. It is also extremely simple to understand and customise. You can also choose from a number of different background images that ask the reader to share the post.

One small criticism I would have is that if you’re using the Twitter icon you’ll need to install a second plug-in called ‘Twitter Friendly Links“.Why? By right this should all be contained within the one plug-in.

You’ve only got a tiny window of opportunity from the time someone finishes reading your post until the time they leave. If you want to expand your reach across the web then you need to make possible for your blog posts to be made shareable. It’s also important that you make this an easy and fast process. Plug-ins like Sexybookmarks are just the way to do it!

When it comes to social management apps, TweetDeck is by far miles ahead of the rest. From its beginning as a Twitter app to its evolution as a social media “must have”  it’s been an invaluable resource. Personally, I couldn’t manage without it!

With Twitter now firmly embedded in social activity online, TweetDeck has become the primary way of interaction for many. According to Twitstat, the British start-up is now second only to Twitter itself when it comes to methods of accessing Twitter. It’s a truly remarkable success story for the company that was founded only two years ago.

The team behind the scene seems to be under no illusions about what they need to do to stay at the top. There are a number of competitors out there such as Hootsuite and Seesmic looking to topple TweetDeck from its perch, so TweetDeck need to keep their users satisfied if success is to continue. Thus, this month the app got a host of shiny new features to whet the appetite of the social media enthusiast.

So what’s new?

With the release of TweetDeck V.0.30, there were a number of small and not so small updates to the service. The TweetDeck directory is one of the major new extensions to the app. The new service is basically Tweet Deck’s way of showing you users and tweets in categories that are of interesting to you. You can search categories such as News & Politics, Business, Technology and Travel. From there you can select a subcategory. If you like the topic, you can then add the ‘Group’ to your TweetDeck app. The one problem that I have with this is that you’re never told that by doing so you are actually added as a ‘follower’ to all those currently in the group. There’s no notice/warning that this is going to happen until you see visually all the people being added. It would work much better if they simply added a column to the app with all group members and then I could choose who I wanted to follow. That’s a big Fail in my book TweetDeck!

Photographic tweets made easy!

One of the other updates that caught my attention was the photo upload feature. You can now simply click and drag any picture on your computer and drop it into the comment area on TweetDeck.  After you do this you get an image preview, and then you get the option to upload it to a TweetPhoto, TwitPic or YFrog.  It’s an extremely fast and efficient method of adding photos to tweets! For now the default upload service is TweetPhoto, but this can be changed to TwitPic or YFrog via the settings. How other providers are going to react to TweetPhoto being elected as the default is yet to be seen but after the saga that happened over at Tr.im earlier this year when Bit.ly was made default URL shortner, someone is bound to be unhappy with the developments.

MySpace! Really?

With the new release, to my surprise, came the integration of MySpace. The first question that came to mind when I saw it was be frank, why? MySpace has been for some time, and still is, lagging way behind the rest of the Web2.0 social web. It’s been struggling to keep up with the lightening fast growth of Facebook and Twitter and is now thought of in a somewhat negative light. It’s become known as a place for aspiring musicians to upload their songs and try getting a following more than a place for social interaction, an association TweetDeck could do without.

Good idea, bad idea

There are two other, small updates to TweetDeck with V.0.30. The first involves the extremely important URL shortening. You now have the option to auto-shorten you’re links immediately rather than waiting until after you send the tweet. Before this addition the problem of dead link often occurred. You’d write you your tweet and add a link to the shortening area below. Then when the link was added if there wasn’t enough room you’re link would become a dead one leading to nowhere. It’s something that was both annoying while also looking unprofessional. Now thankfully you can see the length or your tweet with a link before you ever send it.

The other change to the service is one that has created a new annoyance for some, while being embraced by others. It’s to do with the minimization of TweetDeck to the taskbar on our computers. Before, when you clicked the ‘X’ to close the app it actually closed fully. Now when you do so, instead of closing the app minimizes itself to the taskbar. Why the development team decided to introduce such a feature is questionable, but why they haven’t included an option to over-right this through the settings is inexcusable. Plenty of apps work in such a fashion, but 99% of them allow you to change it to your liking. Annoying users won’t do them any favours now will it!

I do like TweetDeck!

Looking back at what I’ve just written, I wouldn’t blame you for thinking that I don’t like TweetDeck. Not true! It’s an app that I thoroughly embrace and use in my daily activity. It does have some minor flaws but you can put this down to its ambition and constant evolution as it strives to better itself. For anyone out there new or old to Twitter and social media, TweetDeck is a must get that will simplify your life!