The Word On The Street

"...Buzzwords are typically intended to impress one's audience with the pretense of knowledge. For this reason, they are often universal. They typically make sentences difficult to dispute, on account of their cloudy meaning..." (Wikipedia)

Over the past couple of days, I have found myself explaining various "buzzwords", whether it be to a client, colleague, or some random stranger, it seems like everywhere I go, some new buzzword is being used. What's interesting, is that it doesn't matter who is asking the question, or which buzzword is being used, the conversation has an underlying tone of confusion and always starts in one of two ways:

"...I was in this meeting/read this email/heard this person use the word [insert buzzword here] and I have absolutely no idea what they are talking about, please help..."

or

"...I read in the news/heard on the radio/saw on TV that all the big companies are starting to [insert buzzword here] so let's do it too...".

Now, while I have absolutely no problem being the designated buzzword guru (in fact I rather enjoy it), I feel that there might be some people out there too afraid to ask the questions. And so, today's entry, is a small compilation of words that I've put together over time based on the "buzzwords" that I've come across.

• AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) - A programming language used for creating more dynamic and interactive web applications. It differs from other languages in that it communicates with the server through the exchange of small amounts of data behind the scenes, thus removing the need for slow page reloads caused by user interaction.
• Blogs (weB LOG) - A website containing an individual's chronological accounts (using text, images, multimedia...) on a specific subject (i.e. Interactive Project Management, The Business of Technology As I See It...). Most blogs increase their sense of interaction through the use of user comments.
  
• CMS (Content Management System) - A software system used to easily manage content (i.e. documents, images, multimedia...) production, organization, and archiving.
• CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) - A stylesheet language used to indicate the layout (i.e. margins, font type, colours...) of a document written in markup language (i.e. a web page, email, blog...).
  
• RSS (Really Simple Syndication) - A web feed format used for automatically publishing content (i.e. news highlights, podcasts, news groups...) to your website/blog/email, based on your specific subscription.
• SEO (Search Engine Optimization) - A process or service offered to improve the natural search ranking of a website within various search engines, thus leading to an increase in the quality and quantity of hits.
• SMS (Short Message Service) - Refers to the sending of short messages to and from cell phones. Typically, used when referencing mobile-to-mobile text messages.
• Social Networks - Social structures setup on the Internet to connect like minded groups or individuals (i.e. facebook.com, myspace.com, linkedin.com...). To find out more about social networks, read my entry To Facebook Or Not To Facebook, That Is The Question?
  
• Viral Marketing - A marketing technique used to increase brand awareness by leveraging pre-existing social networks and encouraging it's users to voluntarily pass along a specific message to other people within their networks.
  
• Widget - A self standing chunk of code that can be implemented into any basic HTML page for added functionality (i.e. printing, font control, bookmarking...).
  
• Wiki (What I Know Is) - A collaborative technology used to easily organize information on the Internet (i.e. wikipedia.com).

So remember, the next time you start to ramble on about some new buzzword, that there is probably someone in the room who has absolutely no idea what you're talking about.