The participative web

There are within the participative web or web 2.0 a number of phrases that are very quickly becoming mainstream colloquialisms. Interestingly, many of the ‘new’ web 2.0 applications have origins and provenance that stretch back over a decade, for example wiki, or weblog, however, these are still terms that not everyone is comfortable with. On that basis, here is Daemon Digital's short yet sweet glossary:

Blogs

A blog (the term is the abridged version of web log) is effectively a small website, more often than not operated by one individual, which includes regularly updated information and commentary on one issue or on a series of related issues.

Mashups

The term used to describe taking content feeds from more than one source simultaneously and combining the feeds, or mashing them up, to create a new and improved application, for example, the combination of BBC News and Google Maps as a mashup to create News Maps.

Podcasting

A podcast is a digital media file which is designed to be downloaded to portable media players (mp3 players for example) or played through a PC. The term podcasting is in effect an amalgam of ‘ipod’ and ‘broadcasting’ and reflects the market dominance of Apple’s ipod in the mp3 portable market.

RSS

RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication and is a web feed or channel which takes content in an easily transported form from one web site, or a series of websites, and through an RSS Reader enables a user to access content from multiple locations at one time.

Social networking

Effectively the term which has come to mean a web based application which creates a community from like minded individuals, example of which would include My Space or FaceBook.

Widgets

A web widget is in effect a portable piece of code which can be implemented without the need for additional programming or development input inside another web site. One of the most common examples of a web widget is the Google application implemented on many blogs and smaller websites which links Google advertising to content on the site.

Wikis

A wiki is a web site or series of web pages in which all of the content has been created collaboratively by users of the web site. Wikis are therefore effectively community websites, or can be used as a component within a site to create user developed content, for example a wiki glossary of terms. One of the best known examples of a wiki is the website Wikipedia.