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Web Words, Part One
In this blog, the first of three parts, we will have a look at acronyms of the marketing machine. We will cast some light into the dark corners of the web acronym field.
Acronyms All Round
The web is a surreal place by any standards: grown men and women have silly little names such as PixiePoop007 or AwesomeAllanTheAmazing, where teenagers hack the world’s largest credit companies and sunrise and sunset might as well exists in a parallel universe. It is also the domain of a vast arsenal of acronyms. POP. LAN. CMS. BOOM. BIP. Well, maybe not the last two.
Without any further ado, Shapeshift will attempt to prise apart the strands of the web's acronym knot.
Blog
A term that blends web and log and is a type of interactive website. Contains entries displayed in reverse-chronological order that include commentary, descriptions, graphics and video.
Crowdsourcing
The act of outsourcing tasks, traditionally performed by an employee or contractor, to a large group of people or community (a crowd), through an open call. In online marketing or social media, crowdsourcing refers to allowing user or visitors the ability to decide which content they approve of disapprove of. It is a pure form of democracy, in many ways, as it allows the masses to make a decision together. The wisdom of crowds, if you like.
e-commerce
Electronic commerce, commonly known as e-commerce, eCommerce or e-comm, refers to the buying and selling of products or services over electronic systems such as the Internet and other computer networks.
Mailing List
A mailing list is a collection of names and addresses used by an individual or an organization to send material to multiple recipients. The term is often extended to include the people subscribed to such a list, so the group of subscribers is referred to as "the mailing list", or simply "the list".
New Media
It describes the new forms of media, and the distribution there of, that has arisen and developed with the advent of the internet and the digital age. This takes the form of websites, blogs, podcasts and video sites.
PageRank
A PageRank is a mathematical algorithm used by search engines such as Google and Bing to assign a numerical value to a website. It basically helps to determine which website are ‘worth’ more than others in terms of popularity, peer-reviewed content and traffic, allowing search engines to direct net surfers to better websites.
Social Media
Social media is one of those terms in the modern marketing lexicon that one either loves or hates. In a nutshell, Facebook, Twitter & YouTube are the main culprits that allow users to share a link, image or video with their social network. One click of a mouse allows a user to promote (or demote, make fun of, etc.) a specific piece of info or media. It turns users into the ultimate advertisers, and has been seen as the beginning of the end for traditional advertising media. And let’s face it, would you rather trust a paid actor in an advertisement to give you an honest opinion, or your buddy Dave?
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)
SEO is a very specialised field within online marketing, and one that can often appear closer to a mathematics thesis than advertising. In essence, search engines such as Google use a complicated and semi-secret mathematical algorithm to calculate where your page should be ranked if someone were to type in certain words in a search engine, known as your PageRank. There are a multitude of options to pursue, most of which are best left to specialised SEO agencies. Suffice to say, agencies that promise instant first page results on a search engine are simply not being truthful. The golden four SEO rules to pursue are title tags, meta description tags, content & inbound links (see Reciprocal links).
Viral
You find a funny video on YouTube and show it to your friend, and they show it to their friends, who show it to their friends, and so on. This means it has gone viral.It’s the goal of many publishers to get their content to go viral: to be seen by as many people as possible through word of mouth (see Viral Marketing).
Viral Marketing
Viral marketing is the hot word in social media marketing. It is what most marketers strive for - to run a successful advertising campaign where an advertisement is released on social media platforms (usually a video). It is intended to be funny or quirky enough to entice users to want to share it with their friends, who then share it with their friends, etc. The viral campaign then gathers its own snowballing momentum, and is seen by an immense amount of users within a very short space of time. An advertisment pandemic, if you will.
Web 2.0
Marked by increased focus on user interaction and user generated content. Advancements in web technology allows interaction between the user and on-screen data to be in a real time form, thus minimising page loads and waiting for pages to refresh.
The term Web 2.0 is associated with web applications that facilitate participatory information sharing, interoperability, user-centered design and collaboration on the World Wide Web. A Web 2.0 site allows users to interact and collaborate with each other in a social media dialogue as creators (prosumers) of user-generated content in a virtual community, in contrast to websites where users (consumers) are limited to the passive viewing of content that was created for them. Examples of Web 2.0 include social networking sites, blogs, wikis, video sharing sites, hosted services, web applications, mashups and folksonomies.
Online applications that facilitate collaboration, interoperability, participatory information sharing and user-centered design.
Author: Stephan Willemse
Stephan was caught and hand-reared in the humid jungles of southern Africa. His wanderlust has led to stints in Taiwan, the UK and Spain. After spending several years encouraging studious Asians and volatile Latinos to come to grips with the finer idiosyncrasies of the Queen's English, he responded to the Mother City's call and came back home. He hates boring movies that feature overpaid Hollywood actors running desperately from expensive explosions, but loves words on pages and the soothing sounds of various stringed instruments. He also makes a mean tortilla and mixes some devilish sangria. Twitter @stephanwillemse
Traffic Sense
Great help to those who are new to the web, simple and easy to understand.
Reply
Thanks, Traffic Man!
Stephan