Glossary

This is a collection of terms used and defined throughout this research project.

AJAX: combined web development techniques combining XHTML, CSS, JavaScript and XML to create "rich user expereinces". [Wikipedia]
Amazon: Amazon.com is one of the first companies to sell goods over the internet and utilizes "lightweight programming" such as SOAP and REST to implement its databases and web interactions. [Wikipedia]
API: an "application programming interface" is a set of definitions on how one computer software communicates with another. [Wikipedia]
Blog: or "weblog" is an online publication utilizing RSS feeds to keep readers automatically updated. [Wikipedia]
Collective Intelligence: is an intelligence of cooperative, consensus decision-making, related to the idea of a "world brain" or the base knowledge of users on the Web. [Wikipedia]
CSS: "Cascading Style Sheets" are a stylesheet language used to describe a markup language, such as HTML or XHTML. [Wikipedia]
Flickr: a digital photo sharing website and services suite. [Wikipedia]
Gmail: is a free webmail service which is a key component of Google's general web services [Wikipedia]
Google: is a web company that utilizes many Web 2.0 principles and practices. Their overview is : "Google's mission is to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful." [Wikipedia]
GUI: a "Graphical User Interface" is a method of interacting with a computer through the metaphor of graphical images in addition to text. [Wikipedia]
Hyperlink: a link or connection from one document, or webpage, to another. [Wikipedia]
Lightweight Programming: a markup language with simple syntax allowing for less memory space, and typically used in wiki's or blogs. [Wikipedia]
Live Web: the concept that the web is a "living" and "growing" organism of digital information and connected human users.
Long Tail: describing certain business and economic models, such as Amazon.com or Netflix, that value wide distributions on a smaller scale. [Wikipedia]
Mashup: a website or webapplication that combines content from various sources into one integrated experience, RSS webfeeds are a good example. [Wikipedia]
Meme: which is Greek for "memory", is a piece of information, or idea, passed from one mind to another and can be thought of as the evolution of language or a "language virus". [Wikipedia]
MySQL: "Multi-user Structured Query Language" is an open source, database management system, typically coupled with PHP. [Wikipedia]
Open Source: the philosophy and practice of production that promotes open access to source content and values collaborative creation. [Wikipedia]
Perpetual BETA: BETA is the first feature-complete version of a computer program and is combined with the idea that Web programs will be realeased early and will develop over time through user interaction and feedback, therefore perpetually improving. [Wikipedia]
PHP: "PHP Hypertext Preprocessor" is an open-source programming language used for server-side applications and dynamic content presentation. [Wikipedia]
Remixing Content: the act of taking content from one program or creation and reworking or re-applying it in a new way,
REST: "Representational State Transfer" is an architectural style for systems on the Web. [Wikipedia]
SOAP: "Service-Oriented Architectural Pattern" is a protocol for exchanging XML-based messages over a computer network or the Web. [Wikipedia]
Syndication: a form of simultaneous distribution of part of a website for other sources to reference or use, such as RSS feeds. [Wikipedia]
Tagging: the process of labeling a piece of data with metadata, or data that describes other data - Flickr is a good example of using tagging on digital photos. [Wikipedia]
Trackback: a mechanism used in a blog that shows a list of entries in other blogs that refer to a post on the first blog. [Wikipedia]
UDDI: "Universal Description, Discovery, and Integration" is an online listing of web-based services and providers using a white, yellow, and green page description format. [Wikipedia]
Users Add Value: the idea that the increase use of a product by more users adds value and benefit to the overall product - Amazon's user ratings and comments and Person-to-person networks both add value to the original service.
Watson: a sofware product distributed by Apple used to gather multiple resouces into one interface; an example of a "Digital Lifestyle Aggregator".
Web as a Platform: a central idea of Web 2.0 that rich-user interface, web programs can replace the common use of computer-based programs; the Web as operating system. [Wikipedia]
Web Service: a software system designed to support machine-to-machine interaction in order to automate the distribution of information over the Web. [Wikipedia]
Wikipedia: a multi-lingual, web-based, free-content encycolopedia; a good example of using the power of the "collective intelligence of the Web" - the resource used to compile this MASS of glossary definitions! [Wikipedia]
XHTML: "eXtensible HyperText Markup Language" is a markup language that has the same expressive possibilities as HTML, but with a stricter syntax; typically used with CSS as the stylemarkup language. [Wikipedia]
XML: "Extensible Markup Language" is a general-purpose markup language for creating special-purpose markup languages, and is a key tool used in the implementation of Web 2.0 practices and products. [Wikipedia]

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