Social Media Jargon Buster
Feed
A stream of information provided by a third party. Popularly output as RSS feeds, these sourced can be channeled into your site or aggregation page to keep you in the know.
FeedBurner
FeedBurner is a Google company/tool allowing web sites, blogs and podcasts to 'burn' content into a simple way for readers to subscribe (incl. email).
Feed Reader
An aggregator of content, subscribed to by the user, so that specific content or search results arrives in their "reader". Among the popular (and free) tools are GreatNews, Feed Demon and Google Reader.
Folksonomy
Indexing of content via the use of tags, labels or keywords by the community eg Flickr. Unlike libraries, folksonomies create less structured ways of classifying and cross-referencing information. And you won't get shhh'd if you join in noisily.
Social networking site Facebook was started by Harvard college student Mark Zuckerberg in 2004. Originally for US students only, now anyone can join. And over 210m people did.
Fake Blog
When someone pretends to be someone else - see astroturfing to seed bogus or fictitious reviews on blogs / forums etc. Sometimes called a 'flog' (although we though that was what happened to naughty sailors in the 1700s).
Fisking
A particularly acidic or 'punchy' comment / post. Named after journalist Robert Fisk. Apparently, Fisk 'fisked' film director Uwe Boll and the latter took him outside for a fist-fight. (Boll won. Apparently).
Flame
Posting inflammatory and insulting comments on a blog is known as 'flaming'. A flame, which is often a personal attack on the blogger, adds nothing to the discussion and often upsets and offends. A flaming disgrace you might say...
Flashturbation
The unnecessary and excessive use of Adobe Flash on websites. Proof that you can have too much of a good thing.
Flickr
Photo-sharing website where users upload photos and tag them so the content can be easily found, viewed and shared. Add words / captions to create a work of flicktion (see below).
Flicktion
A collection of pictures on Flickr accompanied by short stories eg The Doorbells of Florence, nominated for a Blooker Prize.
Forum
An online meeting place for open discussions on various topics. When you enter a forum you'll see the topics and threads that have already been posted. You can reply to these or start your own.
Friends
People you are linked to on social network sites. Unlike the real world, online Friends can be people who are no more than a passing acquaintance or colleague you always thought was a bit odd and never want to see again. Ever.
