The Internet is an incredible resource but keeping up with an always-evolving online world can be a challenge. Sometimes the lingo alone can stand between successfully implementing a social-media strategy and being overwhelmed by widgets, avatars, and hashtags.

Here’s an update of our previous list of basic terms to familiarize yourself with (New terms in bold)  …

Active Rain – The largest social network for real-estate professionals. Launched in 2006, Active Rain has nearly 200,000 members.

Aggregator – A web-based tool or desktop application that collects syndicated content from across the Internet.

API (Application Programming Interface) – A computer system or application that allows programs and websites to communicate and exchange data.

App – An application performing a specific task able to be accessed by your computer or phone.

Archives – An index page that organizes past entries and older posts by date.

Avatar – The image, picture, or username a person uses to identify themselves on social-networking sites.

Badge – A linked image displayed on a blog that promotes a person’s profiles or participation on other social-media sites, such as Facebook or Twitter.

Bit.ly – A popular – and free – URL shortening service that makes it easier to share lengthy web addresses on social-networking sites such as Twitter.

Blog – A regularly updated website or “web log” that allows a company or individual to post content and interact with readers through commentary, subscriptions, widgets, and syndicated RSS feeds.

Blogosphere – A term used to describe the totality of blogs on the Internet.

Blogroll – A list of sites, typically found in the sidebar of a blog, showing the sites that particular blogger recommends.

Content – Content on any website, including text, pictures, video, and audio materials.

Creative Commons – A nonprofit corporation that provides free licenses and legal tools that label creative work with the creator’s specifications on reuse, sharing, and using commercially.

Dashboard – The administrative area on blogs and social-media sites that allows you to edit your information, manage comments, monitor traffic, upload files, etc.

Delicious – A free online bookmarking service that allows users to save web addresses publicly and privately online, so they can be easily accessed and shared.

Domain Name – The identifying name or address of an Internet site.

Facebook – The largest social-networking site for individuals and businesses. Facebook has more than 500 million users.

Feeds (RSS Feed) – A program used by a website that allows the user to syndicate their content and provide subscribers with new blog posts and articles without requiring them to visit the site.

FeedBurner – A Google-based tool that provides a way for users to accept subscriptions by email for their blog posts, podcasts, and online content.

Forums – Online forums allow members of social-media sites to interact with other members by posting messages or questions on particular topics.

Geotagging – Adding location-based data to media such as photos and video to help users find businesses and services by region.

Groups – Communities within social-media sites that allow users interested in particular topics or activities to share information, posts, and messages with other members.

Hashtag – Used on Twitter, a hashtag is a keyword or phrase preceded by a “#” that helps organize posts, making them easier to find in Twitter searches.

Hits – A measurement defined as any request for a file from a web server.

HootSuite – A web-based Twitter service that allows users to manage multiple Twitter profiles, schedule tweets, and view statistics and metrics.

Hyperlink – A navigational reference that embeds a link to a document or page on the Internet.

HTML – The coding language used to link documents, text and multimedia files on the Internet. HTML is the programming language that provides content and structure for web pages in order to define layout, font, color, and graphics.

LinkedIn – A business-oriented social-media site for professional networking. Launched in 2002, LinkedIn now has more than 70 million registered users.

Links – Highlighted text that, when clicked, takes readers to another page containing related content or source materials.

Link Building – The process of generating links to your website from other sites in an effort to boost search-engine ranking. Blogging is a popular method of link building.

Metadata – Information, including titles, tags, and captions, used to describe a media item or blog post in order to make it more easily found by search engines and aggregators.

Micro-Blogging – A form of blogging that limits the amount of characters or words per post, such as Twitter.

Open Media – A term referring to any media, including video, text, and audio, that can be freely shared online.

Permalinks – The permanent address or URL of a blog post or web page. A permalink is what is used when linking to another story within an email message or post.

Profiles and Pages – The pages on social-networking sites where a person or business displays their contact information, pictures, posts, and files.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) – The process of improving and increasing traffic to a website from search engines.

Sidebar – A column or columns along either or both sides of a blog’s main content area that includes widgets, contact and biographical information, links to previous posts and favorite sites, archives, badges, subscription information, RSS feeds, and more.

Social Media – Websites that provide communities with common interests a means to communicate and engage with one another online.

Social Networking – Socializing online through a social-media site, such as Facebook or LinkedIn, that allows you to create a profile and communicate with other members.

Subscribing – Signing up for a site’s feed, which automatically sends you new content from that site.

Syndication – The process of sharing and distributing content online.

Tag Cloud – A visual representation of the most popular tags on a blog or website. More popular tags are usually shown in larger type while less popular tags appear smaller.

Tags – Keywords associated with a blog post or other content making them more easily found through searches.

Threads – Messages or posts under a single forum topic or the comments and trackbacks of a particular blog post.

Trulia – A real-estate search engine and networking site that allows professionals to create business profiles and allows consumers to find listings, blogs, and real-estate information.

Tweet – A post or update on Twitter.

TweetDeck – A Twitter application that serves as a real-time browser that connects you with your contacts across Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and more.

Twitter – A micro-blogging site where members post “tweets” or messages of 140 characters or less.

Upload – The process of transferring a file from your computer to a website.

URL (Uniform Resource Locator) – A URL is the technical term for a website’s address.

Video Blog – A blog that produces and posts video content on a regular basis.

Wall – The shared portion, or discussion board, displayed on a social-media profile.

Webinar – A web-based seminar, presentation, lecture, or workshop transmitted over the web.

Widget – An application offered on social-media sites and blogs that performs a specific function allowing users to customize their profiles or blog.

Wiki – A technology that allows many users to edit a web page, such as Wikipedia.

WordPress – A blog publishing application that offers users an easy-to-use template through which they can create their own blog and maintain their own blog.

YouTube – Popular video-sharing website through which users upload, share, and view videos. It is the largest video-sharing site in the world.

Source materials here, here, here, here, here, and here.

The Ibis Network / www.theibisnetwork.com