Blogging Glossary

This is the official glossary for this blog. There are lots of terms related to blogging that are listed. A great list especially for "NEWBIE" Bloggers. Feel free to look over the list and get familiar with the words and meanings that will come in handy as you travel the blogging path. Know of any words and meanings not listed here?
Leave a comment with the meaning and I will post it. If your a blogger don't forget to leave a link to your blog ... oh yeah ...link love!

Ad Sense: Ad Sense is an advertising publishing program offered by Google that enables participating bloggers to make some money on their Web logs. After signing up for AdSense, eligible blogs can run Google text (and sometimes banner) ads on the blogs’ pages; the advertisers pay Google when blog visitors click those ads, and Google shares the money with bloggers.

Ad Sense for Feeds: A variation on Google Ad Sense, the Ad Sense for Feeds program places small text ads in RSS feeds when they are displayed in newsreaders. This program enables bloggers to make money even if most of their readership occurs off-site. Placing ads in RSS feeds is somewhat controversial but is becoming less so.

Ad Words: Google Ad Words is an advertising program in which advertisers place context-sensitive ads on Google search result pages and, if the advertiser opts to, on other Web sites participating in Google Ad Sense.

Anchor link: Anchor links exist in blog entries to cite relevant Web pages that the reader might want to look at. See embedded link.

Archives: Archives are the historical record of a blog. Blog programs and services keep track of every entry posted by the blogger; nothing is discarded unless the blogger intentionally deletes an entry. Most bloggers do not delete entries except under exceptional circumstances; blog culture requires keeping even regrettable entries available. Links to archived posts are sometimes provided on each page’s sidebar, organized as a list or as a monthly calendar.

Atom: One of two major syndication feed formats (the other being RSS), Atom is used by Blogger.com.

Audio blogging: Audioblogging refers to creating a spoken-word entry. Some blog services (Blogger is one) provide tools for recording audio entries. Other general services (such as Audioblog.com) allow posting audio entries to blogs on other services. Audioblogging is not the same as podcasting.

Blawg: A blawg is a blog about law and legal issues.

Blink: This slangy term is a nickname for Web link, especially a link to a cited Web page in a blog entry. “He blogged about that article in yesterday’s Times but forgot the blink, so nobody could read the article.”

Blog: A contraction for Weblog, a blog is a Web site powered by software that makes frequent updates easy. New content is usually presented as a dated entry, with the entries displayed in reverse chronological order. Because of the organizational scheme, blogs are often used as personal and public diaries, but a blog can be about anything at all, and some blogs are professional publishing ventures.

Blog digest: A blog digest provides no original material but quotes and points to entries from many other blogs. Taking its model from the Readers Digest magazine, blog digests reprint other people’s work, but the most ethical of them do not quote entire entries.

Blog search engine: A blog search engine specializes in finding blog entries that match keywords and blog entries that link to URLs entered by the searcher.

Blogathy: Blogathy occurs when you become apathetic about posting in your blog. One always hopes that blogathy is temporary.

Blogerati: A vaguely defined and sometimes sarcastically employed term, blogerati refers to the aristocracy of the blogosphere.

Blogger: A blogger writes a blog.

Bloggerel: This derogatory term refers to blog entries of little merit, often because they repeat widespread discussion points without adding original thinking or because they represent debunked viewpoints.

Blogging: Blogging is the act of writing and posting blog entries.

Blogistan: Similar to blogosphere, the term Blogistan represents the blogging nation. Blogosphere carries a more amorphous and nebulous feeling than Blogistan, but they mean essentially the same thing.

Blognoscenti: As with blogerati, this term is vaguely defined and generally refers to the most knowledgeable inner circle of bloggers.

Blogorrhea: Not to be gross, but blogorrhea is too much insubstantial blogging. I didn’t invent the term; I’m just reporting it.

Blogosphere: The entire global networked universe of bloggers and blogs is called the blogosphere. Often called a community, even though millions of bloggers cannot realistically get to know each other, portions of the blogosphere are woven together by connected strands of discourse. The mechanics of this connection include comments, TrackBacks, and embedded links in blog entries.

Blogroach: This derogatory term denotes a blog reader who crawls through comment sections leaving many unnecessary comments.

Blogroll: The blogroll is the list of favored sites displayed in a blog’s sidebar. Attaining a spot on the blogroll of a popular and influential blog is a sign of success and usually results in more visitors to the blogrolled site.

Blogstipation: Blogstipation is writer’s block for bloggers. The condition might be due to a lack of inspiration, as with traditional writer’s block, or it might result from exhaustion after blogging too much.

Business blog: A business blog, quite simply and obviously, is a blog about business.

Comment: Most blogs allow readers to write and post responses to blog entries; these responses are in public view and are called comments. Some blog experts believe that when comments are disabled, preventing readers from discussing entries, a blog ceases to be a blog. The viewpoint of this blog, however, is that deciding whether to accept comments is the universal prerogative of bloggers.

Comment spam: A pestilent fact of blogging life, comment spam is unsolicited, irrelevant, inappropriate, and usually commercial messages deposited in the comments section of a blog. Comment spam is widespread, particularly afflicting blogs with high readership. Spammers use automated programs called spambots to crawl through the blogosphere, leaving junk comments.

Commentariat: Meant as a term of respect, the commentariat is the global community of people who write comments in blogs. The term can also be used in a local sense. One might say, “His blog entries are a little boring, but his commentariat turns out interesting conversations despite that.”

Commenter: Someone who writes and posts a comment in a blog.

Embedded link: Blogs characteristically provide many context links in their entries, so readers can see the source material (articles, other blog entries, and so on) that inspired the blog entry. Rather than extensively quoting source material, bloggers cite it by linking to it directly from the blog entry. These links, also called anchor links, are embedded in the entry using a simple linking function in blog software.

Entry: The foundation of a blog, the entry is the piece of new content that keeps the blog updated. Each new entry written and posted by the blogger is placed at the top of the index page — the home page of the blog. Previous entries are pushed down the page until they eventually fall off the page, which has a preset entry limit. Entries are never lost, however, because each
new entry is assigned a unique page in the blog and can always be read on that page.

Entry page: The Web page permanently assigned to a blog entry is called the entry page. Blog entries are placed on the index page when first posted; simultaneously, each entry is placed on its own page, instantly created to hold it. Entry pages are cited by other blogs discussing the entry. The URL (Web address) of the entry page is called the permalink.

Event blog: Event blogs are temporary sites set up to cover an event. Typical event blogs include concert blogs, Academy Award blogs, and professional trade conference blogs. Often, event blogs feature “live” reporting, by which a blogger attends the event with a connected laptop computer or other device, and posts frequent updates of the proceedings. Event blogs are sometimes left in place as archived histories, even after their events have concluded.

Feed: A feed is a summary of blog entries, displayed in newsreaders using a format in which graphics and other page elements are stripped out. Feeds always contain the headline of the entry and usually contain some or all of the entry text. Depending on the blog program or service, the blogger has variable control over how the feed is presented. On the newsreader end, the reader also might have some control over how much of the entry is viewed. Feeds enable the blogger to syndicate blog entries globally, so that readers do not need to visit the blog. However, the feed always links back to the blog entry it is displaying, so readers can visit the blog to leave a comment or for another reason.

Feed aggregator: A feed aggregator is another term for newsreader.

Fisk: One of most peculiar blogging terms, to fisk is to deconstruct (usually with some viciousness) an article or blog post written by somebody else. Fisking involves quoting the target piece point by point and refuting each point. Dogmatic as it is, fisking is a common blogging style.

Flame: Throughout the Internet, a flame is an argument that has turned personal.
Flaming is intended to wound with words and can be found in Usenet newsgroups, Web-based message boards, and any other discussion environment (such as blog comments and Track Backs).

Group blog: Group blogs are written by teams of bloggers. Some of the most influential blogs are team efforts.

Hit: When a piece of Web content is viewed, that instance is called a hit. Any sort of Web page can be hit, including a blog index page or entry page. Likewise, an RSS feed is hit when it is accessed and viewed. Hits are measured by traffic logs to determine the size of a blog’s readership.

Hitnosis: The sad condition of obsessively monitoring one’s traffic logs is called hitnosis. This entranced state often results from a spike in traffic coming from a citation in a popular blog or being added to a prominent blog roll.

HTML: An acronym for Hyper Text Markup Language, HTML is the computer code underlying all Web pages. It is necessary to know HTML for the self installed blog programs discussed in this book and useful to know for some of the hosted options. Casual bloggers working in write-and-click blogging services can safely ignore HTML.

Index page: The home page of a blog, the index page contains recently posted entries, with the most recent entry at the top of the page. instalanche: An effect similar to being slashdotted, an instalanche occurs when a blog post is cited by Instapundit (www.instapundit.com), one of the most influential of blogs. The resulting tidal wave of traffic to the cited blog can sometimes overwhelm that site’s server.

Journal blog: A journal blog is a personal, diary-style blog.

Link love: Link love is a friendly link from one blog to another. Links drive traffic, and most bloggers desire traffic, so incoming links are loved.

Log: A measurement of a blog’s readership. See traffic log.

Macrologue: A term I coined for this book, the macrologue is the global conversation woven into the blogosphere through comments, TrackBacks, and links embedded into entries. Primarily a feature of topical discussion blogs, the macrologue furthers discourse spread out over many blogs around the world.

Meme: A somewhat overused term that causes some bloggers to roll their eyes, a meme is an idea or a set of arguments that has attained a life of its own through widespread discussion.

Meta blogging: This term sounds like a gigantic blog, but its meaning is different and self-referring. A meta blog is simply a blog about blogs and blogging.

Moblog: A blog run by mobs? Nope; it’s a mobile blog. Moblogs contain content
sent from remote locations using portable computing devices such as Internet-enabled cell phones.

MSM: This acronym stands for mainstream media, and is often used scornfully by bloggers who regard blogging as superior to traditional journalism publishing. This attitude regards mainstream media as slow and insular compared to the quick and disclosing culture of blogging.

News blog: A news blog is a general term for a blog that revolves, in some way, around news stories. General news blogs cover current events broadly, but more commonly a news blog focuses on some aspect of daily events such as politics.

Newsreader: In a generic sense, newsreaders are programs that display news articles in original or summary form. In the context of blogging, a newsreader is a specialized site or desktop program that lists and displays syndication feeds chosen by the user. Most blogs offer their content outside the Web site by means of a feed, the most common format for which is RSS. Newsreaders are sometimes called RSS aggregators.

Old media: A somewhat (but not necessarily) disrespectful term, old media refers to newspapers, magazines, and other printed media that make up the MSM (mainstream media). More generally, an old medium is any genre of culture that has been supplanted, or will soon be supplanted, by a new format. partial entry: On a blog index page, partial entries can be used to save space. Readers can click through to an archived page that contains the full entry. In an RSS feed, a partial entry likewise saves space and encourages readers to click through to the site, where they can read the full entry.

Permalink: A blog entry’s perma link is the index page link to its permanent page in the blog. Putting the perma link below each blog entry on the index page makes it easy for visitors to copy the perma link’s URL and cite the entry in another blog.

Photo blogging: Photo blogging refers to posting a digital photo in a blog. Serious photo bloggers operate blogs with no text entries — just pictures. Casual photo blogging produces a mix of written and photo entries and often includes photo displays in the sidebar. Photo albums are often attached to photo blogs.

Ping: When two Internet locations communicate with each other, they are said to ping each other. The word is especially used in the context of Track Backs, which use pings to complete the two-way link.

Podcast: A podcast is simply a series of audio programs recorded in the MP3 file format and distributed in a blog and an RSS feed. Their name derives from the iPod, the most popular MP3 player, but they can be heard through any portable player and through any desktop audio program that plays MP3s. There is nothing new about MP3 programs. Podcasts have become so popular due to their distribution mechanism that they are really more part of the RSS revolution than the blogging revolution. That said, it’s worth noting that the RSS revolution is dependent on the blog revolution. Anyway, podcasts and blogs are closely related.

Post: Both a verb and a noun, a blogger can actually post a post. As a verb, bloggers post entries. As a noun, bloggers put their posts in their blogs.

Reciprocal link: When two bloggers agree to add each other’s blogs to their blog rolls, the links are called reciprocal links.

Referral log: Part of a site’s traffic log, the referral log shows where a site’s visitors came from. The referral log, when available, is useful to bloggers who want to know which sites are linking to them most effectively. If, for example, a blog’s traffic leaped upward, the referral log could show that an influential site linked to a blog entry, giving it an unusual amount of visibility and sending
lots of traffic.

RSS: An acronym that stands for both Really Simple Syndication and Rich Site Summary, RSS is a type of syndication feed. As a generic term, RSS represents all feed formats.

RSS aggregator: Another name for a newsreader. sidebar: Located on the left or right side of a blog’s index page (and sometimes replicated on every page in the blog), the sidebar can contain links to archived entries, a blogroll, photos, lists of many kinds, and other content that relates to and enhances the blog.

Slash dotted: In an effect similar to an instalanche, a citation from the hugely influential site Slash dot (www.slashdot.com) sends so much traffic to the cited blog that its server can become disabled. This phenomenon is also known as the slash dot effect.

Spam: Generally, spam is advertising deposited inappropriately and unwantedly. In a blog, spam can be found in comments and TrackBacks. Spam is increasingly a problem for bloggers, causing some popular blogs to remove their comment and Track Back sections.

Spamblog: A scourge of the blogosphere, spam blogs are generated automatically, contain no useful or hand-written content, contain mostly (or exclusively) links, and are intended to manipulate search results at major search engines. These engines rank Web sites partly by the number of incoming links, so shady Web marketers set up spamblogs containing hundreds of links to their sites. In theory, the search engines count all those links and rank the target sites higher in search results. In fact, search engines are more sophisticated than that, and spamblogs are of questionable value.

Splog: Another word for Spamblog.

Syndication: Syndication is a method of distributing blog entries beyond the blog site, primarily to newsreaders. Crucial to the syndication mechanism are RSS and Atom, two syndication formats. Both these formats create feeds, which are text-only displays of blog entries. Newsreaders organize these feeds and display them, allowing their users to gather their favorite blog content in one window.

Template: A template is a set of design elements replicated throughout a blog. Templates can determine the blog’s appearance (the color scheme) and layout (number and placement of sidebars).

Theme: In some blog services, themes are identical to templates. More specifically (in TypePad, for example), a blog theme can refer only to the site’s color scheme and does not affect page layout.

Thread: A thread is an online discussion. In the context of blogging, a thread is a series of comments on an entry page.

Track Back: A remote-comment system used by some blogging programs and services, Track Back enables one blogger to deposit a link to his or her blog on another blogger’s entry page.

Track Backs represent an important part of the conversational aspect of the blogosphere, but their use is hampered by blog services that don’t support. Track Backs and also by widespread confusion about how they work.

Track Back spam: Irrelevant and commercial messages deposited on blogs as Track Backs.

Traffic: Blog traffic is blog readership. Every visitor to a blog is counted by that site’s measuring tools as a hit, the smallest increment of Web traffic. RSS feed readers also count in a blog’s traffic.

Traffic log: In any Web site, blogs included, the traffic log measures how many people visit the site and where they came from (the site from which they linked to the blog). Many other measurements can be included in a traffic log, such as the type of browser used by the visitor, how long that person stayed in the site, and which pages were viewed. These statistics are typically aggregated and displayed in graph or chart format.

Vlog: A vlog is a video blog. At this writing, the vlogosphere (to coin a term) is small but growing, with some observers claiming that vlogs will overtake podcasts.

Web log: The formal name of which blog is a contraction.

XML: An acronym for eXtensible Markup Language, XML is the underlying language of RSS, a standard syndication format.