Terms Bloggers Use

As with any new technology, blogging has its own jargon. These are some of the words and definitions of blogging.

Aggregator– Software or web program that gathers syndicated web content such as news headlines, blogs, podcasts, and vlogs in a single location for easy viewing. Also known as a feed aggregator, RSS Aggregator or a feed reader.

Blawg– Commonly called lawyer blogs. These are generally by lawyers, law students or law professors and focus on commentary about the law.

Blog– Short for "Web log." A web application that contains periodic postings on a webpage. These are often but don't have to be in reverse chronological order.

Blog feed– XML Machine-readable versions of the blog that may be "syndicated" for further distribution on the web. These are generated by the blogging software in formats such as RSS and Atom.

Blogging– The act of writing and posting a blog.

Blogosphere- All blogs that make up the Internet blogging community. Also called blogistan, blogspace or blogiverse.

CMS- Short for Content management system. Software that allows website or blog users to login and update content online. The content is usually stored in a database and the web page or blog page is created dynamically.

Comment spam– Unwanted comments that attempt to drive visitors to another blog site. Usually generated by automatic software or “spambots.” This is a serious problem that requires anti comment spam software on most blogs. Similar to email spam.

Comments– Comments are submitted by readers of blogs enabling them to leave remarks and add to the “blog conversation.” These usually appear at the bottom of a blog posting.

Dooced– To be fired because of comments made by an employee on a personal blog.

Linkbaiting– Content on a website or blog that is designed for the specific intention of gathering links from as many different sources as possible.

PHP– Short for Hypertext Preprocessor. An open source, server-side HTML scripting language used to create dynamic Web pages. A programming language for creating web applications.

Plugins– A computer program that works with a software application to provide a specific function. WordPress plugins can add specific features to expand a blogs functions.

Podcasting– Originally short for “iPod broadcasting” but now means posting audio and video material on a blog and its RSS feed, for playback on mobile devices and personal computers.

Read-Write Web– Another name for Web 2.0. The second generation of the web, making collaboration and interacting easier using blogs and wikis.

RSS– Really Simple Syndication. A family of web feed formats used in web syndication. These are an XML based system for aggregating information from blogs, news and frequently updated websites.

Tag cloud– A graphical view of keywords used on a website or blog. Tags are typically listed alphabetically, and tag frequency is shown with font size or color.

TrackBack– Alerts a web or blog author that somebody has linked to one of their documents. This allows writers to keep track of who is linking to their blog postings or web content.

Web 2.0 – A term coined by O'Reilly Media in 2004 to describe a second generation of the web. This describes more user participation, social interaction and collaboration with the use of blogs, wikis, social networking and folksonomies.

Web feed– These allow subscribers to see new content as they are published on blogs and websites. Sometimes called an RSS Feed.

Web Syndication– A form of syndication in which a section of a website is made available for other sites to use. Examples are RSS and Atom feeds.

XML- Short for eXtensible Markup Language. A simple, very flexible text format derived from SGML; a general-purpose markup language for blog syndication.