Thursday Thirteen #3 - Blog Terms

I just celebrated my 100th post, and I thought it was time to show off all the new blog terminology I've learned.

Who knew there was a whole language to this thing called blogging! Although, I understand these terms I didn't feel confident in my abilities to define them for you. I linked each word to the original source where I found each definition.

1. Widget - Widgets are the web a la carte. These movable mini-applications are used by consumers to craft custom experiences on their desktops, start pages, social networks, blogs and more. Widgets can be almost anything, common examples include games, stock tickers, video and audio players, quizzes, slide shows, personal productivity tools, system utilities -- almost anything you can think of can be made into a widget.

2. Permalink - A permalink is a URL that points to a specific blog or forum entry after it has passed from the front page to the archives. Because a permalink remains unchanged indefinitely, it is less susceptible to link rot.

3. Meme - An idea, project, statement or even a question that is posted by one blog and responded to by other blogs. Although the term encompasses much of the natural flow of communication in the Blogosphere, there are active bloggers and blog sites that are dedicated to the creation of memes on a regular basis

4. Blogosphere - Blogosphere is a collective term encompassing all blogs and their interconnections. It is the perception that blogs exist together as a connected community (or as a collection of connected communities) or as a social network.

5. Blogring - A Blogring connects a circle of Weblogs with a common focus or theme. The theme can be anything you want: a group of friends, a support group, even a shared passion or hobby.

6. Bloglines - Bloglines is a FREE online service that helps you subscribe to and manage lots of web information, such as news feeds, weblogs and audio. Bloglines tracks the information you're interested in, retrieves new stuff as it happens, and organizes everything for you on your own personal web news page.

7. Carnival - Some webrings host collaborations called carnivals. The ring owner decides on a topic and invites members of the ring to write on that topic. The owner then provides links to each of those sites that submit links. BlogCarnival.com provides a list of several carnivals ongoing in the blogosphere.

8. Ping - A ping is a test to see if a system on the Internet is working. "Pinging" a server tests and records the response time of the server. Pinging multiple computers can be helpful in finding Internet bottlenecks, so that data transfer paths can be rerouted a more efficient way. A good way to make sure you do not get disconnected from your dial-up ISP for being idle is to send a ping every 5 minutes or so. There are a number of shareware Ping programs that will do this for you.

9. Podcast - A podcast is a collection of digital media files which is distributed over the Internet, often using syndication feeds, for playback on portable media players and personal computers. The term podcast, like "radio", can refer either to the content itself or to the method by which it is syndicated; the latter is also termed podcasting. The host or author of a podcast is often called a podcaster.

10. Blogroll - A blogroll, usually listed in a bloggers' side column, is simply the list of blogs they read.

11. Blogware - commonly used in reference to the tools used to write blogs, such as WordPress or Movable Type.

12. Post - The term used to refer to an individual story or article on a blog.

13. Blego - A combination of the words Blog and Ego, used to describe the actions of bloggers who write as to their own self worth.

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