Radio Talent Coach Sam Weaver 1 888 680 7234, E-mail thecoach@radiocoach.biz. Sam is an authority with air talent for terrestrial radio, online radio, and podcasting. His expertise in broadcasting and life coaching can help you reach your goals.

New Language
You are at a disadvantage if you visit a non English speaking country and can not speak the language. In order to effectively operate in the new world order of social media and social networking, it is important to understand the terminology. I have compiled a list of terms A-Z from various resources to assist you in learning social media language. It is going to take 13 blogs to cover all the information, beginning with the A’s and B’s. (All source references will be listed at the bottom of each post.

Advanced Audio Coding (AAC also MPEG-2):
An audio compression scheme is a continuation of the mp3 CODEC, but produces higher-quality audio files at smaller bit rates. AAC is designed for use in digital broadcasting systems, multi-channel and surround audio (such as 5.1), and based on its capability to support up to 96kHz sampling rates and 48 channels. AAC could be the basis for audio in multimedia for the foreseeable future. Some streaming audio formats (Liquid Audio) have already adopted the AAC scheme. The MP4 format has also becoming popular.

Adverblog:
Short for “advertising blog”, a blog used for advertising purposes.

Aggregation:
The process of gathering content from multiple websites that provide RSS feeds such as blogs. The results may be displayed in an aggregator website like Blog-lines, or directly to desktops using software often called a newsreader.

Aggregator:
An Aggregator site collects and contains all information on one topic; news, video blogs, insurance, movies, travel, coupons, etc. Multiple web sites are used to amass the data for the particular subject. It is a one stop shop for consumers interested in only one thing. For example, Yellowbrix or Google reader are excellent for news. Both of which gather from RSS feeds.

AJAX:
Ajax stands for “Asynchronous Javascript and XML” and is a technology designed to work with Javascript. Javascript is used to make AJAX requests and process the returned data.

It allows browsers to make server requests (e.g. loading new data) without having to reload the entire page. A good example that makes extensive use of Ajax is Google Mail. It allows for web applications to look and behave more like their desktop counterparts and saves bandwidth by not having to reload the entire page just to retrieve a small piece of new data.

Alerts:
A service available from various online news sources and aggregators that will automatically send updates on user-selected topics whenever those topics appear online or in the specific news source. Some examples, Google alerts, Twitter, Linkedin, and Facebook will email you with permission.

Architecture of Participation:
A phrase coined by Tim O’Reilly that is used to describe the nature of systems that are designed for user contribution. Architecture of Participation is a Web 2.0 concept in which a community of users contributes to the content or to the design and development process. Examples of Web 2.0 include social networking sites, blogs, wikis, video sharing sites, hosted services, web applications, mashups and folksonomies.

Astroturfing:
Astroturfing is a form of advocacy in support of a political, organizational, or corporate agenda, designed to give the appearance of a “grassroots” movement. The goal of such campaigns is to disguise the efforts of a political or commercial entity as an independent public reaction to another political entity—a politician, political group, product, service or event. The term is a derivation of AstroTurf, a brand of synthetic carpeting designed to look like natural grass.

Asynchronous Communications:
Synchronous communication is direct communication where the communicators are time synchronized. This means that all parties involved in the communication are present at the same time. This includes, but is not limited to, a telephone conversation (not texting), a company board meeting, a chat room event and instant messaging. Asynchronous communication does not require that all parties involved in the communication to be present at the same time. Some examples are e-mail messages, discussion boards, blogging, and text messaging over cell phones. In distance (specifically online) education asynchronous communication is the major (sometimes the only) method of communication. Usually, we use different discussion boards in each class with each having its own purpose.

Audio Blog:
Another name for a podcast. Despite the casual nature implied by the word blog in this term, audio blogs can have a wide range of production value from very casual audio journals to professionally produced shows including music, sound effects, and other production values.

Audio On-Demand:
Another expression for audio podcasting, referencing the ability of listeners to start, stop. Replay, and skip sections or whole recordings at any time, virtually any place in their daily lives.

Audio Boo:
Is a website and iPhone application designed to allow users to post and share sound files on the

AudioBoo Website:
AudioBoo was developed by UK based BestBefore and partially funded by Channel 4 and was launched in March 2009

Audio On-Demand:
Another expression for audio podcasting, referencing the ability of listeners to start, stop, replay and skip sections or whole recordings at any time, virtually any place in their daily lives. See Podcast and Time-shifting.

Authenticity:
The sense that something or someone is “real”. Blogs enable people to publish content, and engage in conversations, that show their interests and values, and so help them develop an authentic voice online.

Avatars:
Graphical images used in virtual worlds to represent people. Users can create Avatar visual personalities selecting a gender, body type, clothing, behaviors, and name.

Bed:
Audio that is reused as a background element, such as music or sound effects.

Blegging:
Derived from “blog” and “beg”, this term means to send a query through the blogosphere in search of an answer.

Blogcast:
Another name for a podcast.

Blogerati or Blogophile
Two terms used to describe sophisticated blog authors and readers.

Blogosphere:
The universe of blogging and bloggers.

Blogroll:
A list of sites displayed in the sidebar of a blog, which shows who the blogger, reads with regularity.

Blogs:
Shortened from the original term “weblogs,” these self-published websites are written in journal form. Content such as text, pictures, video and/or audio have URL’s plus other ways of identifying them by keywords (tags). This allows visitors to pull items to their desktop through subscriptions or aggregators without having to visit the actual website. Blogs often have links to other relevant online content, plus invite feedback via comments from readers.

Bookmarking:
Saving a website address or item of content, either in a browser, or Social bookmarking which is a method for Internet users to organize, store, manage and search for bookmarks of resources online. Many online bookmark management services have launched since 1996; Delicious, founded in 2003, popularized the terms “social bookmarking” and “tagging”. Tagging is a significant feature of social bookmarking systems, enabling users to organize their bookmarks in flexible ways and develop shared vocabularies known as folksonomies.

Bookmarklets:
Also called favelets, these are free tools to help with repetitive, difficult and/or time-consuming tasks when using a web browser.

Browser:
The tool used to view websites, and access all the content available there onscreen or by downloading. Browsers may also have features including the ability to read feeds, write blog items, view and upload photos to photosharing sites. Browsers have become the central tool for using social media as more and more tools previously used on our desktops are becoming free online.

Bulletin boards:
Were the early vehicles for online collaboration, where users connected with a central computer to post and read email-like messages. They were the electronic equivalent of public notice boards. The term is still used for forums.

Business-Class Podcast:
A term to describe podcasts directed toward a professional audience. Business-class podcasts can be casual in nature, although typically don’t have the garage-band feel (Garage band is audio editing software in Mac’s) or wider audience lifestyle podcasts have. Lifestyle podcasting or trendy casts are generally targeted at the youth market (However this is changing), and have little long-term branding goals.

Buzz:
Online “chatter,” or social discussion and interaction characterized by frequent expressed interest and/or mentions of a subject among the online or water-cooler community.

Source References for Blog:
CGM Glossary
Social Media Glossary
Wikipedia
Webopedia