Essential e-glossary

Here we define 10 popular digital terms to help clarify any fuzziness around the often baffling web speak we hear on a daily basis.

Application

Application software, also known as ‘application’, or ‘app’, is computer software designed to help the user to perform a specific task. Typical examples are word processors, spreadsheets, media players and database applications. Apple has popularised ‘apps’, allowing anyone to create an application for use on its iphone. Examples of the thousands of apps available, either for free or a fee, ranging from receiving the FT direct to an iphone, a tool that will help the user avoid picking up a parking ticket, or the just launched app, inspired by the Pope’s call for the church to use social media – virtual Rosary beads!

Blog

A blog is a contraction of the term ‘web log’ and refers to a part of a website, usually maintained by an individual, that offers regular entries featuring commentary, reviews or other material such as graphics or video. Many function as personal online diaries, but can offer a way for experts to debate issues making use of ‘comments’, an interactive facility that allows readers to post commentary on a blog. Technorati has indexed 133,000,000 blogs since 2002.

Cloud computing

Typical cloud computing providers deliver common business applications online that are accessed from a web browser, while the software and data are stored on servers that do not belong to the user. The classic example of cloud computing might be Gmail, offered by Google. The upside is it means very small organisations do not have to make a capital outlay or invest in expensive infrastructure and training to use certain services and applications – they effectively ‘rent’ the services and computer power. The worry is that the owners of such servers, for example Google, Microsoft, and Amazon, become the ‘owners’ of huge amounts of information which some believe threatens the democracy of the web.

Internet

The terms ‘internet’ and ‘world wide web’ (www) are often used in everyday speech without much distinction, but they are not the same thing. The Internet is a global data communications system, relying on a hardware and software infrastructure to provide connectivity between computers. The Web is a collection of interconnected documents and other resources available on the internet, linked by hyperlinks and URLs (uniform resource locators) such as the ‘address’ of a web page (e.g.www.philanthropyuk.org).

Mash-ups

The term ‘mash-up’ is primarily used to describe a remix of digital data and services to create a new product or service e.g. BBC news and Google Maps are used in a ‘mash-up’ so users can see the news happening in their local area.

Social media

An umbrella term that defines the various activities that integrate technology and practices that people use to share insights, experiences and perspective with each other such as blogs, Twitter and Facebook.

Web 2.0

A term that refers to a ‘second generation’ of internet-based services that allow for collaboration and sharing of information. These include social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook.

Webinar

A seminar that takes place online using video conferencing software that allows many people to take part.

Widget

A web widget is a portable piece of code that can be installed and executed within any separate web page by an end user. The US Foundation Center’s Pub Hub widget, which allows anyone to download a graphical interface allowing access to a database of research and reports primarily funded by US foundations, is a good example. Widgets often take the form of on-screen tools such as clocks, event countdowns, stock market tickers, flight arrival information, daily weather etc.

Wikis

A ‘wiki’ is a piece of software that allows users to freely create and edit web page content. It encourages democratic use of the web and promotes content composition by nontechnical users, as seen on Wikipedia, which has fairly well defined rules of use, unlike other wikis. Wikis allows the organisation of contributions to be edited in addition to the content itself.

Ward Cunningham, the developer of the first wiki software, WikiWikiWeb, originally described it as "he simplest online database that could possibly work". ‘Wiki’ is a Hawaiian word for ‘fast’ and has been used by some to stand for “What I Know Is”.