With the year drawing to a close, and with 2009 breathing down our necks, one interesting thing I like to do in the holiday downtime is to look back on the year. This time last year I revisited some of the tech buzz words of 2007. Here we go again with 2008.... Although some of these words (or phrases) are not strictly '2008' words, or are just emerging, they have begun to rise in prominence or are perhaps being used to describe things that weren't really available or widely known about, this time last year. If you have other buzz words you think should be added to this list, please use the comments box below. Here are my 12 in alphabetical order:Blog groveling: This is the practice of certain companies to try to court popular bloggers and influencers to test, sample or endorse their new product or service. It extends to blog posting too. I have been approached several times by those who wanted to write ‘guest posts’ on my blog. When I vetted the posts some could best be described as 'product placement.' I don’t know whether I should be flattered or depressed.
Cloud Computing: Distributing your files away from your desktop and/or accessing programs and services across the Internet using large networks of remote servers. Used to be called distributed computing, but I think cloud computing sounds a little more friendly. Makes sense, I suppose.
Digital Cliff: No, nothing to do with the Peter Pan of Pop going virtual. It describes a sharp degradation of a digital broadcast signal if receivers are beyond a certain distance. This 'digital cliff' could be encountered when broadcasters stop transmitting analogue signals early in 2009. Viewers who received clear analogue signals may find that the new digital signals don’t work.
DWT: Not so much a new word as a new acronym. Driving While Texting – not only downright dangerous, but also stupid.
Edupunk: The philosophy that we should all ‘do it ourselves’, by spurning commercialism and rejecting large corporate products such as PowerPoint and BlackBoard in education (notice I'm not linking to them, so I must be an edupunk!). A word originally coined by so called Edupunk ‘Poster Boy’ Jim Groom. I have blogged about this several times over the year and even gave a presentation on Edupunk at the ALT-C Fringe this year in Leeds.
Friendiligence: This is the amount of your time you spend managing friend requests on Facebook, MySpace, Bebo, Friendster, LInkedIn, etc, etc…. ‘Friendiligence’ reflects the oversaturation of the social networking sphere and the need to ask what your criteria are for ‘friending’ people. Are they real or is it actually spam? Do I actually want 2 million friends on Facebook, or will a paltry 1 million be enough?
Longphoto: This is a video clip of 90 seconds or less. It’s a term used by the photo-sharing Web service Flickr, which began allowing videos to be posted to its site in 2008. Go Pro for $25 a year and you get this facility. Longphotos are not long enough to capture an Obama speech, but long enough to show someone throwing their shoes at Dubya.
MicroTubing: Happening as a kind of ‘atomisation’ of popular media such as television. New forms of content are rapidly proliferating on the social web and many of these appeal to increasingly smaller and more specialised audiences. YouTube has snatched away the initiative from many previously established content producers, and the DVD and satellite TV revolution is also causing MicroTubing to gain pace. Odds on, if you ask someone in work 'did you watch ... last night' - they probably didn't.
Nomophobia: No Mo Phobia (geddit?) Fear of being out of mobile phone contact for a significant period of time. Strikes me that it had to come eventually, although for a while now we have probably been describing this condition as ‘mobile phone addiction’ or tech-dependency.
Photobombing: Inserting an image of yourself in the background of someone else’s photograph. Not sure why people would want to do this, but I suppose it takes all kinds. Photoshop has a lot to answer for.
Swipeout: This occurs when the magnetic strip on your credit card has worn out due to overuse. Not sure whether this word will continue to be in use when the credit crunch and recession really begin to bite in the coming month. Like many workers, it may become redundant...
Anything with Tw- in front of it! ...all these words are inspired by the very popular micro-blogging service Twitter. It allows you to share what you are thinking or doing in just 140 characters per message, by ‘tweeting’ your message to those who ‘follow you’ by subscribing to your stream. Twitter has been so popular in 2008 it has inspired new words and related Web sites. Twitter users (Tweeple or Twits) can now meet up (Tweet-up) and can even check out how successful their tweeting is on Twittergrader. Twemes, Tweetdeck and Twittergroups are just a few other examples of the growing plethora of allied services that have recently appeared – watch out for many more in 2009.
Cloud Computing: Distributing your files away from your desktop and/or accessing programs and services across the Internet using large networks of remote servers. Used to be called distributed computing, but I think cloud computing sounds a little more friendly. Makes sense, I suppose.
Digital Cliff: No, nothing to do with the Peter Pan of Pop going virtual. It describes a sharp degradation of a digital broadcast signal if receivers are beyond a certain distance. This 'digital cliff' could be encountered when broadcasters stop transmitting analogue signals early in 2009. Viewers who received clear analogue signals may find that the new digital signals don’t work.
DWT: Not so much a new word as a new acronym. Driving While Texting – not only downright dangerous, but also stupid.
Edupunk: The philosophy that we should all ‘do it ourselves’, by spurning commercialism and rejecting large corporate products such as PowerPoint and BlackBoard in education (notice I'm not linking to them, so I must be an edupunk!). A word originally coined by so called Edupunk ‘Poster Boy’ Jim Groom. I have blogged about this several times over the year and even gave a presentation on Edupunk at the ALT-C Fringe this year in Leeds.
Friendiligence: This is the amount of your time you spend managing friend requests on Facebook, MySpace, Bebo, Friendster, LInkedIn, etc, etc…. ‘Friendiligence’ reflects the oversaturation of the social networking sphere and the need to ask what your criteria are for ‘friending’ people. Are they real or is it actually spam? Do I actually want 2 million friends on Facebook, or will a paltry 1 million be enough?
Longphoto: This is a video clip of 90 seconds or less. It’s a term used by the photo-sharing Web service Flickr, which began allowing videos to be posted to its site in 2008. Go Pro for $25 a year and you get this facility. Longphotos are not long enough to capture an Obama speech, but long enough to show someone throwing their shoes at Dubya.
MicroTubing: Happening as a kind of ‘atomisation’ of popular media such as television. New forms of content are rapidly proliferating on the social web and many of these appeal to increasingly smaller and more specialised audiences. YouTube has snatched away the initiative from many previously established content producers, and the DVD and satellite TV revolution is also causing MicroTubing to gain pace. Odds on, if you ask someone in work 'did you watch ... last night' - they probably didn't.
Nomophobia: No Mo Phobia (geddit?) Fear of being out of mobile phone contact for a significant period of time. Strikes me that it had to come eventually, although for a while now we have probably been describing this condition as ‘mobile phone addiction’ or tech-dependency.
Photobombing: Inserting an image of yourself in the background of someone else’s photograph. Not sure why people would want to do this, but I suppose it takes all kinds. Photoshop has a lot to answer for.
Swipeout: This occurs when the magnetic strip on your credit card has worn out due to overuse. Not sure whether this word will continue to be in use when the credit crunch and recession really begin to bite in the coming month. Like many workers, it may become redundant...
Anything with Tw- in front of it! ...all these words are inspired by the very popular micro-blogging service Twitter. It allows you to share what you are thinking or doing in just 140 characters per message, by ‘tweeting’ your message to those who ‘follow you’ by subscribing to your stream. Twitter has been so popular in 2008 it has inspired new words and related Web sites. Twitter users (Tweeple or Twits) can now meet up (Tweet-up) and can even check out how successful their tweeting is on Twittergrader. Twemes, Tweetdeck and Twittergroups are just a few other examples of the growing plethora of allied services that have recently appeared – watch out for many more in 2009.
World War 2.0: There's a battle raging out there between those who are committed to the idea of a democratic, open and socially rich web, and those who want to maintain strict control over it, content and concept. The polemic between Andrew Keen (who famously compared bloggers to ‘monkeys with typewriters’) and Web 2.0 champions such as Donald Clarke and Don Tapscott will continue, and we may even witness the outbreak of World War 3.0.
e-Vampire: This is a derogatory term referring to electrical equipment that consumes electricity while in standby mode. It’s symptomatic of our society’s new conscience on going green and saving energy.
I wish you a peaceful Christmas and a very happy and successful new year!
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