Glossary
Glossary
The terminology of the digital media world can be confounding. This handy Glossary will help you make sense of some common terms, with links to the community-generated Wikipedia online encyclopedia. We will update it regularly.- blog
- A website that is frequently updated with reverse chronological posts. Comes from the word weblog. Gained popularity due to cheap, easy tools so anyone could start one.
(Blogs Canada entry) - citizen journalism or citizen media
- When ordinary citizens — without journalism training — help in reporting, commenting on or disseminating the news, it’s known as citizen journalism. It includes people snapping photos on cameraphones at the scene of breaking news, as well as people who start their own blogs or podcasts.
(Wikipedia entry) - digital video recorder (DVR)
- A consumer electronics device that lets you record TV shows and watch them later, with the ability to fast-forward through commercials. The most well known of these devices is the TiVo service.
(Webopedia entry for PVR) - iPod
- A portable MP3 player sold by Apple Computer. More recent models allow you to store and view photos and video.
- MP3
- Short for MPEG (Motion Picture Experts Group) 3, the term refers to an audio compression format that became popular on the Internet in the mid to late ’90s. While audio purists don’t always like the sound quality of MP3s, they have proliferated because of peer-to-peer networks online that allow file-sharing.
(Wikipedia entry) - peer-to-peer network
- A computer network where each computer is a node on the network and there is little reliance on computer servers. Peer-to-peer services include file-sharing networks such as Gnutella and Freenet, and previously Napster was a popular peer-to-peer network.
(Wikipedia entry) - podcast
- A radio or video show that allows you to subscribe to it online, for automatic uploads to your MP3 player. The technology for podcasts is a version of RSS, which allows you to subscribe to text content using news reader software or sites.
(Webopedia entry) - portable MP3 player
- A consumer electronics device that lets you upload MP3 and other audio files and take them with you to listen to on your own time. The Apple iPod is the most popular portable MP3 player, but there are many others from companies such as Sony and Creative.
- RSS or web feeds
- Technology that lets you subscribe to the content of a website or weblog, and then scan headlines or blurbs on new content for these sites using a news reader or aggregator. RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication, but previously stood for Rich Site Summary.
(Wikipedia entry) - videoblog or vblog
- A blog that includes video entries, and sometimes includes text as well.
- wiki
- A website that allows all its readers to add to and change its content. Some wikis let you track all the edits of a page, and revert to old versions.
(Wiki.org definition)
Filed under MediaShift
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