GLOSSARY

If you’ve never heard of social media, social networking or social marketing, here are a few of the main terms and phrases that I use throughout the book. I’ll explain more of the terms as we move through the chapters, so this isn’t an exhaustive list at all.

Aggregation

Software or a website that collects information from several sources for use in one place.

Application programming interface

Enables a software application to interact with other software programs.

Blog

An online chronological diary of entries written by a user or group of users and searchable online.

Folksonomy

The users of a site classify web page information in ways that are useful to them and do not necessarily use the formal taxonomy assigned by the web page designer.

Generation Y

People born between 1980 and 2000.

Hub

The centre of activity of a social group. This can be applied to personal relationships, or to a computer network device which connects multiple devices together to act as a single segment of the network.

Influencer

Anyone who has the ability to change people’s perception about a concept, idea or product leading to a change in online behaviour and buying decisions.

Location aware applications

Applications on a mobile device that use the coordinates provided by the mobile network to locate the position of the device.

Mashup

An application on the web containing data from one or more sources which creates a new web service.

Microblogging

Creating a shortened form of a blog entry.

Online brand

Your online presence and information on the web.

Social distance

A person who is connected to you not directly, but indirectly through another person, has a greater social distance from you than someone who is directly connected to you.

Social engagement

Effectively connecting with people in an online two-way dialogue.

Social graph

A way of creating a map or a graph showing all of your online connections, their relationship to you and to each other. This will show people who are loosely connected to you via another person and thus have a greater social distance from you.

Social media

A collection of web pages and applications that are designed to allow users to interact with their friends.

Social networking

Interacting with your friends and your friends of friends online.

Social tools

Any website that allows interaction and conversation between its users. Another name for social media.

Strong tie

A close interpersonal relationship with an online connection.

Syndication

Website material that is made available to multiple other sites.

Viral effect

Spreading a marketing message across multiple types media using the network of friends and friends of friends.

Virtual worlds

A computer based simulation of a world or environment where users can interact with each other online to play games and inhabit the environment.

Walled garden

A site which is for its members alone and that doesn’t permit interactivity with users from another site.

Weak tie

An occasional connection to someone with whom you wouldn’t claim to have more than a casual relationship.

Web 2.0

Web applications and websites that are built to allow interaction, information sharing and uploading of user generated content.

Wiki

An editable web page that can have multiple authors.