Glossary | Blogosphere: Best of Blogs

AAC: Advanced Audio Coding, a compressed audio format that is used for songs available through the iTunes software and website. The Apple iPod plays AAC and MP3 files.

BBC: British Broadcasting Corporation.

blog: Shortened form of weblog. A personal website that lists posts in reverse chronological order, with the newest post displayed at the top of the blog. Blogs usually contain a column or sidebar of links to other blogs, and a link (called a permalink) to each post. Also used as a verb, as in "Did you blog about your sister's slutty prom dress? You should."

blog digest: A blog that receives, condenses, and displays news from other blogs. A digest receives content and condenses it for viewing.

blog ecosystem: An illustration or diagram that shows links between blogs.

blogerati: The intelligentsia in the world of blogs.

blogger: An individual who writes for a blog, either personally or as part of a group blog.

bloggerverse: See blogosphere.

blogiverse: See blogosphere.

blognoscenti: A serious blogger who spends considerable brain cycles writing for and socializing in the blogosphere.

blogosphere: The universe of blogs that is seen as a massive community or social revolution.

blog roll: A list of links to other blogs that appears in the sidebar of a blog (also seen as blogroll).

blog-site: Antiquated. Use the term blog instead.

blogspot: Blogs created through Blogger.com are hosted on blogspot.com servers. Anyone who creates a blog on Blogger.com will receive a URL in this format: <blognamecreatedbyuser>.blogspot.com.

comment spam: Commercial advertisements created by malicious programs and programmers that fill blogger comment sections. Similar to junk mail or email spam. Methods exist to thwart comment spam, such as word verification.

commenter: A reader who posts comments on others' blogs, usually trying to deposit their opinion on something. Commenters are often more educated on a topic than the blogger.

CSS: Cascading Style Sheet, a style sheet format for HTML-based web pages. CSS separates the presentation of a web page from the content of a web page.

dead-tree <medium>: Refers to paper media, such as newspapers, newsletters, magazines, and so forth. Usually used like this: "Just read over in some dead-tree 'zine that inflation will probably top 10% in the next 6 months."

edu-blog: A blog designed and written to teach you something, such as how to play a guitar or knit (also seen as edublog).

event blog: Usually a short-term blog created or maintained by a commercial interest that coincides with a trade show or seasonal item, such as Mother's Day or Christmas.

feed: A system associated with RSS that distributes news in real time to other sites. An RSS feed is simply an XML page that other sites ping to access headlines or news items.

flame: A verb that implies a heated verbal exchange. To flame someone is to attack someone personally by email or in blog comments. To be flamed by someone is to receive email or read comments that attack that individual.

flame war: A short-lived, highly animated, highly disrespectful, personal attack between two or more parties over email or blogs/blog comments. Essentially virtual road rage.

freeware: Software that is free of charge, as in free beer. This differs from free-speech software, which is often associated with open-source software.

GIF: A file format used on the Internet for illustrations and cartoon-type images with fewer than 256 colors. Differs from JPEG images in that the GIF file format is not used for photographs. Stands for Graphics Interchange Format.

Google bomb: Lacing blog posts and blog templates with words that Google will index in an effort to increase the blog's ranking on the Google.com search engine.

group blog: Blogs run by a group of writers, such as LAist.com (also seen as groupblog).

HTML: HyperText Markup Language, the standard markup language used by web browsers to lay out web pages.

Instapundited: Similar to slash-dotted; refers to the famous blog instapundit referring to your blog. Usually causes massive amounts of readers to visit your blog.

journal blog: A blog that records the writer's daily life, similar to a diary blog. Most blogs resemble journal blogs, which are filled with daily, routine events, such as "Woke up late, brushed teeth, yelled at the dogs barking as I walked to the bus stop."

JPEG: A file format used on the Internet for photographs. JPEG differs from GIF images in that they are used exclusively for photographic-type images. Stands for Joint Photographic Experts Group.

link orgy: Term used by a blogger who discovers her blog has been linked to by a large number of blogs.

link rot: A blog roll that experiences a growing number of dead links, caused by blogs that no longer exist or have moved.

link whore: A blogger who will go to any lengths to get other bloggers to link to his blog (the term is usually intended to be humorous). Similar to link slut.

mediasphere: Refers to conventional media (also known as old media).

meta-blogging: The act of writing articles about blogging. Essentially blogging about blogging (also seen as metablogging).

MMS: Multimedia Messaging Service, an enhanced form of SMS that enables video, images, and other forms of data to be sent by cell phone lines. See SMS.

mobile blog: See moblog.

moblog: Blogging performed on the road or away from what most consider a normal blogging experience (sitting behind a desk). Posting to a moblog usually involves a cell phone or a wireless Internet connection and a cell phone camera or a PDA. The term also applies to bloggers who post while on vacation or on a road trip.

moblogging: The act of taking pictures with a cell phone camera or generating blog posts wirelessly and uploading the data to a blog.

Movable Type: A popular blogging software package available at http://www.sixapart.com/movabletype/.

MP3: A popular file format for audio. Most podcasts are saved in the MP3 file format. Stands for MPEG-1 Audio Layer-3.

MSM: Mainstream media.

NYT: The New York Times.

old media: Traditional media such as network TV, newspapers, and magazines (also known as dead-tree media).

open source: Software that is free to change or modify. Open-source software includes source code that can be freely modified. This term is a replacement for the term free software, which had many meanings.

permalink: Short for permanent link. A permanent bookmark for a blog post. Other bloggers can use this link on their blogs when referencing the post. In addition, when the blog post falls off the front page, the post can still be found (via search engines) by this link.

ping: Packet Internet Groper. A utility that verifies a connection to another machine or validity of an IP address. To ping also means to get the attention of or to notify another server or party online. A ping is sent when using a trackback link.

podcast: A radio show or report that is saved as an audio file and available for download to an individual's iPod or similar audio player. Podcasts are usually MP3 files that bloggers can download and listen to on their iPod or computer.

podcasting: The act of creating a podcast.

pundit blog: A news or politics blog usually providing links to daily news stories. Pundit blogs exist on every continent and almost always are popular destinations for readers (also seen as punditblog). Instapundit.com is the most popular of this type of blog.

reciprocal link: A term used by bloggers who post links to other blogs in their blog roll. If A lists B's site in her blog roll, will B post a reciprocal link to A's site?

RSS: Really Simple Syndication, an XML-based format for communicating Web content across the Internet without human intervention. RSS enables you to automate the delivery of news to your blog.

RSS aggregator: A software program (Web-based or downloadable) that collects news and data from RSS feeds.

RSS feed: See feed.

sidebar: Most blogs use a two-column or three-column design. The sidebar is the narrower column on the right or left of the column where blog posts appear. Sidebars contain blog roll lists and other links.

slashdotted: Associated with Slashdot.org, one of the oldest blogs in existence with millions of readers a day. Mention of a website or link on Slashdot often results in tens or hundreds of thousands of readers clicking the link at the same time. The web server hosting the aforementioned site often hangs or crashes from the number of visitors, or the site's monthly bandwidth allowance is used up in minutes and monetary charges ensue. Websites or links posted on Slashdot are said to be slashdotted; similar to instapundited.

SMS: Short Messaging Service, a mobile-phone standard that enables small messages of less than 160 characters to be sent over the cell phone system.

spambot: A small program that crawls across the blogosphere looking for comment links in order to populate those links with spam. One way to thwart spambot attacks is with word verification.

template: A web page design for a blog. Users can often access the template code (CSS and HTML) and tweak the design for their blog.

thread: A list of related comments that appear under a blog post. The term is used more commonly with Internet forums, or parts of websites where people can comment or post questions. A thread for one topic is listed on a page in chronological order. You can see complex threads by visiting Slashdot.org and clicking Read More under any post.

TIFF: A file format for images popular with layout artists and photographers. TIFF images are compressed but do not lose data, unlike JPEG images.

trackback: A technology that notifies a blogger that his site has been mentioned on another blogger's site. If blogger B just read a post on blogger A's site and would like to comment, B can use a trackback link to comment on A's site and post on B's site at the same time. The trackback appears in blogger A's comment section and shows what has been posted on blogger B's site.

troll: An individual who posts comments to your blog designed solely to incite other readers, either for the pure pleasure of reading their hateful posts or to increase traffic to the troller's site. This is both a noun ("Chris is the most obvious troll in the world. So unoriginal!") and a verb ("Amy trolled Mary's blog again with her typical tired BS.").

URL: An Internet address that consists of an access format (such as http://), the domain name (www.amazon.com), and the optional path to the destination directory (/books). Stands for Uniform Resource Locator.

video blog: A blog designed solely for video display (also known as vlog).

WaPo: Short for Washington Post. A popular blogger term.

weblog: See blog.

whoring: Posting on a blog for the sole purpose of encouraging hits.

Wiki: Web-based software that enables anyone to contribute to a page. Wikis almost entirely are used to disseminate information, not opinion. As such, the Wiki concept is somewhat opposite the blog concept. Blogs are usually controlled by one person who posts her thoughts, opinions, and ideas online. Wikis are a page or pages managed by a group of individuals who intend to disseminate information collectively.

Wikipedia: The website where most Wikis appear: http://wikipedia.org/.

WMA: Windows Media Audio is a file format created by Microsoft that plays in its Windows Media Player. A compressed audio file similar to MP3 and AAC.

WMP: Windows Media Player.

word verification: A technology designed to thwart comment spambots that scour the Net looking for comments sections on blogs. Forces a reader/commenter to enter a string of characters that cannot be read by computers (yet).

WordPress: A popular open-source weblog publishing package available at http://wordpress.org/.

XFN: XHTML Friends Network, a method for using XHTML tags to announce your relationship to another blogger. You might see the term Friends or Friends of Friends regarding who can comment on your site.

XHMTL: A markup language that combines HTML and XML that allows web designers to create their own XML codes. Stands for eXtensible HTML.

XML: eXtensible Markup Language, a language derived from SGML, which is also the origin of HTML. XML allows designers to create their own customized tags, which enables applications and organizations to talk to each other.

Zip file: A file format that serves as a container for multiple files. Zip files are uncompressed (unzipped) to extract the files they contain. Also called StuffIt files on the Mac.