Apps Apps are short for 'Application'.  That could be a programme, like Word or Excel or an accounting package, or it could be a special function.  For example, you can buy 'apps' specifically for your I-phone, on everything from weather forecasts to current prices on the New York Stock exchange. 

Astroturfing Pretending to be someone you're not (eg: placing a favourable review for your own product, getting your PR company to write a blog to give the impression that there's a genuine grass-roots buzz about your product).  As well as being a bit dodgy and likely to backfire, it's also now illegal.

Atom Similar to RSS, this is a web feed that allows you to be notified when a blog or website has been updated. 

Bandwidth A loose term  to describe how much stuff can go across the internet at any one time.  Also described as throughput capacity, it is the difference between the maximum and highest and lowest throughputs, and is usually measured in Kilobits or Megabits per second.  It can also be used to mean the difference between the highest and lowest  frequencies available for network signals.

Behind the curve Digital phenomenon tend to grow in a curve, with  a few 'early adopters' getting in first.  As it starts to become mainstream, everyone jumps on the bandwagon and the gentle little curve becomes steep and sharp.  However, not every gentle little curve becomes steep and sharp - some are simple fads and die out very quickly.  The trick is to spot the curve and before it becomes steep and stay ahead of it.  However, even the experts admit that nearly everyone is 'behind the curve' . 

Blog storm When so many bloggers in the blogosphere write about the same subject that the story gets take up by the mainstream media. Also known as a blog swarm.

Bookmarking A way to save your favourite site address to make it easier to find later.  If you own an ecommerce site, it's good to encourage your visitors to bookmark your site to make it easier for them to come back to you.

Bounce Rate This is one of the ways of measuring traffic to the website.  A 'bounce' happens when the website visitor leaves the site without visiting any other pages.  It is useful to guage how effective an entry page is. It can also be used to refer to undelivered emails   A 'hard bounce' is when the email address is totally unknown.  A 'soft bounce' includes for example out of office replies.

Browser Software that you need to look at the internet.  Examples include Explorer by Microsoft, and Navigator by Netscape

BTW Short for 'By The Way' and often used on internet forums.

Cloud or Cloud Tag A cloud is a collection of keywords on a similar subject.  They are shown visually in a 'cloud' with popular keywords shown in bold and large type, and less popular keywords shown in smaller type 

Folksonomy People who are really into their blogs, web pages and pictures sometimes go to the trouble of classifying them with informal descriptions or tags. This is known as folksonomy.   So a picture of a stag night might be tags such as 'Stag Do' 'Dave' 'Lampost' and 'Handcuffs'.  

FTP Stands for 'File Transfer Protocol'  are sites which offer a special way of logging in to retreive and/or send files.  Some are publically accessible and use the log-in name 'anonymous'.  Others are owned by an organisation, and are used for sharing access to photographs and artwork.  It is especially useful when a team is working on producing a catalogue as it saves having email large pdf files of draft artwork to everyone on the team.

Hit In relation to a website a 'hit' means a single request from a web browser for a single item from a web server.  It is often used as a indication of the popularity of a website.

Internet and internet When you use a capital letter, it means the vast collection of inter-connected networks across the world.   When used with a lowercase 'i' it means anytime two or more networks are connected together.

Intranet A private network inside a company or organisation that is similar to the external internet in the way it works, but is only for internal use. Many companies now have web servers that are only available to employees.

Java A special programme language, invented by Sun Microsystems, specially for writing programmes that can be safely downloaded to your computer through the internet and safely run without fear of viruses or other damage to your computer.  Java programmes can be written to do almost anything a regular programme can do and then put into a web page, so it's often used for animations, calculators and other fancy tricks.

Long tail This relates to the keywords that people search.  The majority of your potential customers use pretty similar words and phrases to search Google. A minority of people use widely different search terms.  Why is this called a long tail?  It’s because of the shape it makes when you plot them on a graph.

Mapping Gathering together a list of blogs, forums and social media entries that all relate to a specific topic.  It's what we used to call research, and is useful in the early stages of planning an online campaign.

Networks In social media terms, a network is the connections and relationships between people. Almost all social network sites have a networking element to them.  On Twitter, you follow people and attract followers.  On Facebook you join different groups based around leisure interests, and on Linked-In you create groups around professional interests. 

RSS Stands for Really Simple Syndication (or Rich Site Summary) and a web feed that notifies you when a blog or site has been updated.  

SaaS Stands for Software as a Service, and is when all 
Search Engine Positioning Part of Search Engine Marketing, and related to  Search Engine Optimisation, this refers to the constant monitoring and modifying of a website to help it get ranked higher by search engines.  

Social Bookmarking Fans of social networks can share their favourite or bookmarked sites on public web-based services such as del.icio.us.  The idea is that other people who have similar interests can check it out and share.

Social Media Tracking Tools One of the commercial issues around social media is the lack of control over how and when your brand is represented.  There are a number of tools that will tell you when your brand - or your competitors - are mentioned, and there are others which track block comments.  Widely used tools include Google Blog Search, Board Tracker, Technorati, Reddit, Blogpulse and Co.mments.com.

UGC Stands for 'User Generated Content'.  Some websites are built entirely around other people writing things, for example Digg, Wikipedia and Squidoo.  For ecommerce sites, UGC mainly means reviews and forums.

Web 2.0 Web 1.0 means the old days when websites were static and used for little more than downloading basic information.  Web 2.0 is the second generation of web development and web design that allows communication, information sharing, collaboration and sharing of photos and videos.  The way people have started using these advances in technology has led to the massive growth of social media. 

Social Media  Social media is about people connecting with each other, usually through websites that are partly created and driven  by its users;  the pages they create and the links they forward to each other.  The most obvious examples are sites like Facebook, Myspace, You Tube and Twitter.  However, sites such as Friends Reunited, the customer reviews of Amazon and even search engine results are all part of the social media phenomenon.  

Wiki A wiki site is one designed for easy creation and updating of web pages and wiki software allows it to happen.  The best known example is Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia.