RSS, Blogs, Podcasts - test your knowledge of current communication technology terms

The Information Age may well be turning into the Communication Age as new technologies for communicating with each other abound. With each new communication technology comes potential new ways for organisations to communicate with their employees, partners, analysts, shareholders, media, and customers. Are you up to date with the latest communication technologies and buzzwords?

See the glossary below for definitions to the following terms:
Blog
Bulletin board / message board / forum
Feeds / RSS feeds
K-log
Podcast
RSS
RSS aggregator / reader
Thread
Web conference
Webcast
Wiki

Blog
‘Blog’ is short for ‘web log’. It describes a web site that contains an online personal journal with reflections, comments, and often images and links to other sites. Most are updated daily and include searchable archives of past entries, lists of other blogs favoured by the author, and a facility for reader input.

Characterised by a conversational writing style, subjective viewpoints, and a sense of egalitarianism and empowering the voice of the individual, blogs facilitate communication and connections between like-minded people.

Bulletin board / message board / forum
These are located on a web or intranet site where people can interact with each other by posting written messages. Since the contributions are in written form, there is no inherent time limit for discussions, and individual discussions or ‘threads’ can go on for hours, days or longer. Posts to message boards can be censored or uncensored.

Feeds / RSS feeds
RSS (see below for definition) content from a publisher, as viewed in an RSS reader, is often called a ‘feed’.

K-log
‘K-logs’ or knowledge-logs are blogs that are used specifically for the purposes of sharing/documenting knowledge and/or sharing the process of knowledge-making. These may be public websites on the Internet, or private websites housed on organisational intranets that are used as an internal communications device to share information amongst individual teams or the whole organisation.

Podcast
Podcasts are audio files such as radio-style shows that are delivered over the Internet to your computer that can be downloaded to digital music or multimedia players, such as the iPod. Unlike streaming audio, which requires you to listen in real time, podcasting lets you control how and when you hear your favourite shows.

Content producers are increasingly turning to podcasting as an inexpensive and user-friendly new distribution channel that has the potential to reach a large audience. Not surprisingly, musicians and bloggers are prevalent among the early adopters, but mainstream media, including the ABC’s Radio National, Triple J, and Computerworld magazine, have begun to offer podcasts on their websites as well.

Some companies are also beginning to experiment with corporate podcasts: General Motors, Pepsico and IBM have corporate podcasts on their US websites.

RSS
RSS stands for Really Simply Syndication, and is a standard description format that enables broad distribution of web content including news, articles, web page updates, blogs and podcasts. When content publishers register the RSS document with RSS aggregators/RSS readers, it facilitates the instant distribution of content updates to consumers and other audiences who have signed up to receive it.

RSS readers enable web users to choose the ‘feeds’ they would like to receive and monitor them all in one place (as the content bypasses cluttered inboxes and appears directly in the RSS reader). This enables them to view a large quantity of web site content in a very short time. RSS is experiencing rapid interest particularly from users of iPods and other MP3 players; as well as many journalists who use RSS readers to keep them up to date on breaking news.

RSS aggregators / RSS readers
RSS aggregators (also called RSS readers) are programs that collect ‘feeds’ from various websites (according to preferences set) and deliver them in a simple interface so you can view them. Unlike search engines, where you proactively search for content, once configured, RSS readers automatically deliver the content directly to your PC.

Thread
A thread is a sequence of responses to an initial message posting. This enables you to follow or join an individual discussion in a newsgroup from among the many that may be there. A thread is usually shown graphically as an initial message and successive messages ‘hung off’ the original message.

Web conference
Not to be confused with a video conference, a web conference is a group meeting or live presentation which is conducted over the Internet. Web conferencing software enables all participants to see the same computer screen content (e.g. PowerPoint presentations, Excel, Word, or PDF documents, computer programs, or Internet or Intranet pages) and audio is provided via dial-in phone lines or also over the Internet.

Webcast
A webcast is a live or delayed sound or video broadcast over the Internet. Viewing Webcasts requires having an appropriate video viewing application such as Windows Real Media Player or Macromedia Flash Player streaming video players; these can usually be downloaded from any site offering a webcast.

Wiki
A ‘wiki’ is a type of collaborative software that enables users to collaborate in forming the content of a Web site. With a wiki, any user can edit the site content, including other users' contributions, from their own computer using a regular Web browser. The term comes from the word ‘wikiwiki’, which means ‘fast’ in the Hawaiian language.