Glossary of blogging
This is a list of blogging terms.
Blogging, like any hobby, has developed something of a specialised vocabulary. The following is an attempt to explain a few of the more common phrases and words, including etymologies when not obvious.
Blog-related terms
A
- Atom
- A popular feed format developed as an alternative to RSS.
- Autocasting
- Automated form of podcasting that allows bloggers and blog readers to generate audio versions of text blogs from RSS feeds.
- Audioblog
- A blog where the posts consist mainly of voice recordings sent by mobile phone, sometimes with some short text message added for metadata purposes. (cf. podcasting)
B
- Blawg
- A law blog.
- Bleg
- An entry in a blog requesting information or contributions.
- Blog Carnival
- A blog article that contains links to other articles covering a specific topic. Most blog carnivals are hosted by a rotating list of frequent contributors to the carnival, and serve to both generate new posts by contributors and highlight new bloggers posting matter in that subject area.
- Blog client
- (weblog client) is software to manage (post, edit) blogs from operating system with no need to launch a web browser. A typical blog client has an editor, a spell-checker and a few more options that simplify content creation and editing.
- Blog publishing service
- A software which is used to create the blog. Some of the most popular are WordPress, Blogger, TypePad, Movable Type and Joomla.
- Blogger
- Person who runs a blog. Also blogger.com, a popular blog hosting web site. Rarely: weblogger.
- Blogirl
- A female blogger
- Bloggernacle
- Blogs written by and for Mormons (a portmanteau of "blog" and "Tabernacle"). Generally refers to faithful Mormon bloggers and sometimes refers to a specific grouping of faithful Mormon bloggers.
- Bloggies
- One of the most popular blog awards.
- Blogroll
- A list of other blogs that a blogger might recommend by providing links to them (usually in a sidebar list).
- Blogosphere
- All blogs, or the blogging community.
- Blogodynamic
- Dynamic with the genre and appearance of blogs
- Blogware
- A category of software which consists of a specialized form of a Content Management System specifically designed for creating and maintaining weblogs.
- The BOBs
- The largest international blog awards.
C
- Catblogging (traditionally "Friday catblogging", sometime "Caturday")
- The practice of posting pictures of cats, in typical cat postures and expressions, on a blog.
- Collaborative blog
- A blog (usually focused on a single issue or political stripe) on which multiple users enjoy posting permission. Also known as group blog.
- Comment spam
- Like e-mail spam. Robot “spambots” flood a blog with advertising in the form of bogus comments. A serious problem that requires bloggers and blog platforms to have tools to exclude some users or ban some addresses in comments.
D
- Desktop Blogging Client
- An off-line blog management (posting, editing and archiving) tool
F
- Fisking
- To rebut a blog entry in a line-by-line fashion.
- Flog
- A portmanteau of "fake" and "blog". A blog that's ghostwritten by someone, such as in the marketing department.
- A food blog; sometimes, a blog dedicated to food porn.
- Feeds
- RSS Feeds.
H
- Health blog
- A blog that covers health topics, events and/or related content of the health industry and the general community.In short any thing related to health.
- How-To blog
- A blog that covers topics like blog creation, customization and promotion.Other topics that fall under this category are Tut Blogs, Mobile Tutorials/ Guides like Clash of Clans hack deutsch
J
- J-blog
- A journalist blog.
- A blog with a Jewish focus.
L
- Legal blog
- A blog about law.
- Lifelog
- List Blog
- A blog consisting solely of list style posts.
- Litblog
- A blog that focuses primarily on the topic of literature.
M
- Milblog
- Term for blogs written by members or veterans of any branch of military service - Army, Navy, Air Force, or Marines. A contraction of military and blog.
- Moblog
- A portmanteau of "mobile" and "blog". A blog featuring posts sent mainly by mobile phone, using SMS or MMS messages. They are often photoblogs.
- Mommy blog
- A blog featuring discussions especially about home and family.
- Multiblog
- A blog constructed as a conversation between more than two people.
P
- Permalink
- Permanent link. The unique URL of a single post. Use this when you want to link to a post somewhere.
- Phlog
- Type of blog utilising the Gopher protocol instead of HTTP
- A Photoblog. A portmanteau of "photo" and "blog".
- Photoblog
- A blog mostly containing photos, posted constantly and chronologically.
- Pingback
- The alert in the TrackBack system that notifies the original poster of a blog post when someone else writes an entry concerning the original post.
- Podcasting
- Contraction of “iPod” and “broadcasting” (but not for iPods only). Posting audio and video material on a blog and its RSS feed, for digital players.
- Post
- An entry written and published to a blog.
- Post Slug
- For blogs with common language URLs, the post slug is the portion of the URL that represents the post. Example: http://domain.com/2008/01/this-is-the-post-slug
R
- RSS
- Really Simple Syndication is a family of Web feed formats used to publish frequently updated content such as blog entries, news headlines or podcasts.
- RSS aggregator
- Software or online service allowing a blogger to read an RSS feed, especially the latest posts on their favourite blogs. Also called a reader, or feedreader.
- RSS feed
- The file containing a blog’s latest posts. It is read by an RSS aggregator/reader and shows at once when a blog has been updated. It may contain only the title of the post, the title plus the first few lines of a post, or the entire post.
S
- Search engine friendly URLs
- or, for short, SEF URLs, implemented with a Rewrite engine.
- Spam blog
- A blog which is composed of spam. A Spam blog or "any blog whose creator doesn't add any written value."
- Slashdot effect
- The Slashdot effect can hit blogs or other website, and is caused by a major website (usually Slashdot, but also Digg, Metafilter, Boing Boing, Instapundit and others) sending huge amounts of temporary traffic that often slow down the server.
- Subscribe
- The term used when a blogs feed is added to a feed reader like Bloglines or Google. Some blogging platforms have internal subscriptions, this allows readers to receive notification when there are new posts in a blog.
T
- Templates
- Templates, used on the "back end" of a blog that work together to handle information and present it on a blog.
- Theme
- CSS based code that when applied to the templates will result in visual element changes to the blog. The theme, as a whole, is also referred to as a blog design.
- TrackBack
- A system that allows a blogger to see who has seen the original post and has written another entry concerning it. The system works by sending a 'ping' between the blogs, and therefore providing the alert.
V
- Vlog
- A video blog; a vlogger is a video blogger (e.g. someone who records himself interviewing people of a certain field).
W
- Warblog
- A blog devoted mostly or wholly to covering news events concerning an ongoing war.
- Weblog
- The unshortened version of 'blog'.
References