Glossary of Tech Terms

API
An Application Programming Interface (API) provides a way for developers to programmatically access data. Providing you have some programming knowledge, you can use an API to share data across applications, such as the way BatchBook shares data with MailChimp. APIs are considered a good thing because they allow data to be more portable and accessable around the web. View BatchBook’s API documentation.
B2B
This acronym stands for business to business. The term describes activity between businesses, such as marketing or sales.
B2C
This acronym stands for business to consumer. The term describes activity between businesses and consumers. This relates mostly to online businesses and their products and services. Consumers are most likely reached through a form of Internet marketing.
Bandwidth
Bandwidth refers to the amount of data that can be transferred from one place to another within a certain amount of time. Digital devices measure bandwidth in bytes per second. The bigger the bandwidth, the faster the data can be transferred.
Beta
Beta is the second stage in the software development cycle (after alpha). It is when the product is released by the company or organization that built it into the “real world” for testing. Beta level software generally includes all features, but may also include known issues and bugs of a less serious variety.
Blog
A blog (short for "weblog") is a journal that’s available on the internet. Updating a blog is referred to as “blogging” and the person keeping the blog is a “blogger”. Blogs are usually listed in chronological order, with the most recent entry first. Many blogs are available as RSS feeds, which means they are delivered to a feedreader.
Blogosphere
The term blogosphere describes the information available on blogs and/or the sub-culture of those who create and use blogs. By its nature, the blogosphere tends to be democratic, inclusive, and encourages two-way communication between its participants.
Browser
An application that is used to view the Internet. Some examples are Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox.
“The cloud”
A new approach to computing in which you access applications (word processing, spreadsheets, photo storage) through the web instead of through programs stored on your computer. Data is stored online and is accessible and often shareable with others from any computer, not just your own. For example, you might use Google Documents for word processing instead of Microsoft Word. BatchBook is an example of a web app that is in the cloud, since data is stored on a hosted server rather than your desktop.
Comments
Comments on blog posts, videos, photos, or other social media elements are small bits of feedback left by consumers (readers, viewers, etc.) of the content.
“Connections”
On LinkedIn, your “Connections” are your contacts.
Cookies
A cookie is information sent by a web server to a web browser. The browser saves the cookies and sends it back to the server when additional requests are made to the server. The browser may or may not accept the cookie and will save the cookie for a short or long period of time. Information that is contained might be login or registrations, shopping cart information, etc.
CRM
Customer relationship management, or CRM, software is for tracking the traditional sales process including marketing automation, lead generation, sales forecasting, measuring ROIs, etc. Note: Although BatchBook is often referred to as a CRM, it is actually more about managing contact information than sales leads, although it could do both.
CSS
CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) is a stylesheet language that describes how (X)HTML should be presented. CSS allows you to define styles for fonts, colors, borders and even positioning on the screen. One of the biggest benefits of CSS is that it separates your site’s presentation from the content stored in the (X)HTML. Therefore you only need to change the CSS file to make sitewide changes. CSS also allows you to reformat your pages depending on where and how they will be presented (such as on a printed page or mobile device).
CSV
The CSV (comma separated value) file format is a way to exchange data between different applications. This file format will allow you to save all contacts in your address book in one file. Read how to import or export CSV files into or out of BatchBook in our FAQs.
Domain Name
A domain name is the address of a network connection. The format of the domain name tells us who the owner of the address is. For example: www.mass.gov tells us that the server is in Massachusetts and is part of the state government. In retail sales, the domain name (also known as the universal resource locator or "URL") is often the name of the business followed by .com, such as batchblue.com.
Download
Transferring data (usually a file) from another computer to the computer you are using. The opposite of upload.
Feed reader
A feed reader (also known as an RSS reader, news reader, or feed aggregator) is an application (desktop or web-based) that allows you to subscribe to multiple RSS feeds, allowing you to read the content from many websites from one place.
Firewall
A firewall is a piece of software or hardware that helps screen out hackers, viruses, and worms that try to reach your computer over the Internet. Any business or home with an Internet connection should have a correctly installed firewall.
Folksonomy
The word folksonomy is a combination of folks, meaning “people”, and -onomy, meaning “management”. Users create informal social categories using tags to organize content so that others may easily find and share it.
Forum
A forum is a web-based application that allows people to hold discussions through individual posts. The posts will be displayed in chronological order or as threaded discussions. BatchBlue uses a forum as part of its support section to allow users to post questions, share tips and find information.
“Friends”
On Facebook and MySpace (and many other social networking sites), your “Friends” are your contacts.
“Google juice”
An SEO term that refers to the power that one wields within the Google PageRank system for ordering search results. The more people link to your site, the higher your PageRank, and therefore the more “Google juice” your page or site has. Receiving incoming links from bloggers and websites with a lot of juice is highly sought after, since it helps your site rise higher in the Google search rankings.
Inbound Marketing
Whereas traditional, or outbound, marketing focuses on broadcating your message out in various forms (print, email, direct mail) to potential customers, inbound marketing focuses on other techniques to proactively bring people to you or your website. These techniques include blogging, search engine optimization, white (or blue!) papers, etc. They are designed to help your customers find you as they search for information about your product or service category.
IP Address
Short for “internet protocol address”, this is a unique number that identifies a computer connected to the Internet to other Internet hosts. An example of an IP address is 127.0.0.1.
Mashup
Using different web services or applications and combining them (“mashing them up”) to form a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts. Examples include using Google Maps to plot real estate foreclosures, or combining multiple news services into a single webpage. Can also refer to the mixing of multiple audio, visual or text files into a seperate, and distinct work. In many cases, web applications and services are built to allow for and encourage this kind of integration in order to support the collaborative nature of the Web.
Microsharing/Microblogging
Built around the idea that less is more, microsharing and microblogging services like Twitter, Tumblr, Pownce and Qik are designed in such a way as to allow for quick and easy sharing of thoughts, ideas, images, video etc. They are generally social in nature and focused on community-based sharing, although are increasingly developing applications for business as a way to build and stay in touch with your network.
Podcasting
Podcasting is a kind of audio broadcasting that uses the Internet, like an on-line radio show. The name was created by combining “iPod” and “broadcasting”. Podcasting involves making one or more files available in an RSS feed. A pod-caster (the creator of the podcast) makes a list of music and/or other audio files and makes the list available for other users to retrieve.
Post
An article or discussion piece that is submitted to a forum or blog.
RSS feed
RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication. An RSS feed is a document that contains either a summary of content from a web site or the full text of a website. RSS feeds makes it possible for people to keep up with their favorite web sites automatically rather than checking them manually.
Screencast
A screencast is digital recording of a computer screen, usually with audio narration. They can be used to show users how software works and can help report problems in software. BatchBlue uses screencasts to help explain how to use certain features within BatchBook.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Search engine optimization is also known as SEO. This is the process of improving the amount of traffic and the quality of traffic to a website from search engines using algorithmic search results for keywords.
Server
A server is a computer running administrative software that controls access to the network and its available resources such as printers and disk drives. It also provides resources to computers that are operating on the network. A server can also be a program that contains data or files and that responds to commands.
Social CRM
Social CRM puts the “relationship” back into customer relationship management by allowing a two-way conversation between a business and its network. By tracking and joining the ongoing conversations your customers and contacts are having in social media places like blogs, Twitter, forums etc., social CRM enables you to build new and deepen existing relationships, and provides a more holistic view of your business network.
Social Media
The term social media describes media that is posed by the user and can take many different forms. Some types of social media are forums, message boards, blogs, wikis and podcasts. Social media applications include Google, Facebook and YouTube.
Social Networking
A social networking site allows you to identify your contacts and establish a link between you and each of your contacts.
Software as a Service
Software as a Service (SaaS) refers to web-based applications. The applications are available only on the Internet. Customers do not pay to own the software, but instead pay to use the software.
Spam
Spam is email that users receive when a mailing list is used inappropriately and a message is sent to a large number of people who didn’t ask to receive it.
Spyware
Software that is installed on your computer without your knowledge or consent, usually when other software is being installed, is referred to as Spyware. Most try to get the user to look at advertisements or certain websites. Some spyware sends information about the user to other computers over the internet.
Tag
A tag is a keyword used to describe a piece of data (such as a blog post, photo, video, etc.). Tags can either be assigned by the author of the content or the consumer of the content.
Telecommute
Telecommuting is working from a remote location using computers, phones and other electronic devices.
Telework
Also referred to as telecommuting, telework allows employees to work at an alternative location and communicate using computers, phones or other electronic devices. This also refers to workers traveling to visit customers.
Trackback
When a blog links to another blog, a trackback is a notification sent between the two blogs letting the receiving blog’s author know (s)he is being linked to (this implies that both blogs have the ability to send and receive trackbacks)
“Tweet”
A “Tweet” is an individual message (or “update”) posted from Twitter.
Twitter
Twitter is the largest of the microblogging/microsharing services. It’s a web service that allows individuals and organizations to share short (140 characters or less) messages with the people who “follow” or subscribe to their twitterstream. An individual message (or “update”) posted on Twitter is called a “tweet”. We think following @batchblue for information about new product releases or features would be a great place to start!
Upload
Transferring data (usually a file) from the computer you are using to another computer. The opposite of download.
User-Generated Content
Used to describe websites wherein the content is uploaded by users of the site. YouTube and Flickr are great examples of sites that rely heavily on user-generated content.
URL
A URL (Universal Resource Locator) is the address of documents and resources on the internet. For instance, batchblue.com is the URL for the BatchBlue website.
vCard
A vCard is a file format standard that is essentially an electronic business card. vCards can contain name and address information, phone numbers, URLs, logos and other information that would generally be found on a business card. Having this data in a vCard format allows users to easily import and export information into different programs such as BatchBook.
Video conferencing
Video conferencing uses audio and video to connect people at different locations for a meeting. Documents, whiteboards and information displayed on a computer can also be shared during a video conference.
Virtual office
This term refers to a company that may not have a physical location. Instead, co-workers rely on online communication applications such as email and instant messaging.
Virality
The act of content on the web being spread by users sharing it, bringing new users to the original content and therefore adding additional utility.
Virus
A virus is a piece of code that copies itself without help from users and is usually attached to a program or files that can be downloaded. Some viruses display messages, install other software or files, or delete information.
Web 2.0
According to Wikipedia, the term Web 2.0 refers to a trend in web design and development—a perceived second generation of web-based communities and hosted services (such as social networking, wikis, blogs, and folksonomies) which aim to facilitate creativity, collaboration, and sharing between users.
Web application
A web application, or web app, is an application that is accessed over the Internet. Web apps cans be updated and maintained without being installed on users computers.
Whuffie
Originally coined as a term to define a reputation-based economy in Cory Doctorow’s book Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, whuffie has come to be defined as the combined build-up of positive reputation for a particular individual or brand. The more whuffie you build up the more likely people are to think of your ideas, products or recommendations as useful.
Wi-Fi
Wi-Fi is short for “wireless fidelity”. This refers to certain kinds of wireless local area networks. People with handheld devices such as Blackberries or iPhones, or laptops with wireless cards can connect to the internet using a Wi-Fi network.
Wiki
A wiki is a website or piece of software that allows users to create and edit webpages. Users are able to link to outside sites and collaborate on the information that is posted.
(X)HTML
(X)HTML refers to the interchangeable use of HTML and XHTML. HTML (HyperText Markup Language) is the markup language used to create web pages. Markup languages use a set of predefined tags to give meaning to the content of the document. XHTML (eXtensible Hypertext Markup Language) is a modified version of HTML that more closely follows the rules of XML.
XML
XML (eXtensible Markup Language) is a framework for creating a custom markup language. XML allows you to define all the tags for marking up a document or data (often called a schema). This schema can then be used to share the data structure across multiple applications.