Futuristic-Sounding Buzzwords That Cool People Use

I’m not going to try to defend these terms. Instead, let’s just say that they show up in many, many eWeek articles, and most of my eWeek peers would be startled to hear that most programmers have no idea what they mean, without realizing they were basically just made up by marketing people. These are the kind of words you “throw around” when you’re “at lunch with the client” (as if that ever happens to us programmers—but hey, at least we get to wear jeans and T-shirts, even if we don’t get free food). Here we go:

Web 2.0. I’d rather save this one for last, as it’s probably the single biggest one here, even if I’d like to end this section with a bang. But frankly, all the words that follow will seem even more absurd if I don’t set the context. And that context is: Web 2.0! What the heck is Web 2.0? There’s no official definition, with no committee setting a standard for the term (unlike, well, real computer terms). But the term was actually coined by a single individual, the great Tim O’Reilly. (You know, he’s the guy who gives us all those great books that have line drawings of animals on the covers, the books we like to leave on our desk for others to see, because their sheer presence on our desk implies we’re an expert).

According to Tim O’Reilly, who coined the term all the way back in 2004 (yikes, four years ago in computer years—that’s 28 years to you and me), Web 2.0 means—well, actually I wasn’t able to find out verbatim what Mr. O’Reilly says it means. But most people seem to agree that Web 2.0 is a new way of using the Web as a platform (“it’s a new way of computing...altogether!”), making use of all the new features I’m about to cover next. Still confused? Most of us technical people are, especially when people start arguing over whether a particular web site qualifies as Web 2.0 or not. Some people claim that AJAX (which I mention in the next section) is Web 2.0. Others disagree.

I’m still not sure, but I can say this: Web 2.0 apparently refers to the latest and greatest web sites that are actually interactive. To us programmers, that means web applications, the kind that require real, live programming, usually both server-side and client side, as opposed to just run-of-the-mill HTML sites.

Mashup. This one just seems to refer to a program (or web site) that gathers information from more than one web site and displays it all simultaneously. Look it up on Wikipedia and see if you agree with me that that’s really all it is. Nothing much here. Everybody move on.

Folksonomy. I avoided this word for the longest time because, frankly, it sounds silly. Call me arrogant, call me what you will. But I don’t like the word. It brings up images that are so non-technical. Folk? Isn’t that a kind of art? The technology, however, is real, and it refers to people organizing and adding tags to items on the web. One example people often cite is Flickr (the photo sharing site) and how you can provide tags for photos to help people search and find the photos, resulting in a taxonomy or classification.

Social networking. I admit it. I use them. And so do most of you. We’ve seen the sites: Myspace, and so on. Originally they struck me as silly, something that only college freshmen used for sharing photos of their latest underage beer-binging party. But as the sites grow, I’m finding they really are valuable for maintaining contacts and following what others are working on. And even a lot of companies are trying to jump on the bandwagon by providing their own social networking sites. (Um, one certain company that I just happen to work for whose name starts with Z comes to mind.) My problem with the term, however, is that often people use them more for professional and business networking, not “social” networking per-se. If you’ve read my newsletters you’ve seen me recommend our own IT Link—not to just make friends, but to catch up with other professionals and share ideas. Social networking: It’s not just social. (Shall I trademark that?)

Social bookmarking. Oh come on. First we have networking, and now bookmarking? This sounds like the runt of the litter who is trying to follow in big brother’s footsteps but somehow missed the boat and never quite caught up. But it turns out bookmarking really is a big deal when it steps up into the—pardon the expression—Web 2.0 realm of social networking. You’ve probably used social bookmarking before. Have you been to Digg.com? Check out that box on the right of this article, the one the has a bunch of ways for you to (hint hint) publicize this fine article and spread the word around and drive millions of clicks here to make our corporate sponsors happy. I know, I know, back to that marketing thing again. But hey, social bookmarking really is pretty cool. I myself have spent a number of fine evenings lost in the world of Digg.com after getting bored with eWeek. (Oh wait, I don’t get bored with our flagship product, eWeek. Strike that.)

Semantic Web. Now we’re talking. This really is turning out to be more than just a marketing buzzword, as, unlike so much of marketing, there really is some technology behind it. Unlike vague ideas like Web 2.0, Semantic Web really does involve standards, and you’ll probably want to discover what exactly it is. Anyone who is anybody in marketing uses the word. (And no, this is Semantic with an i towards the end, not to be confused with the company that owns that famous anti-virus software.)

I can’t fully describe what Semantic Web is in just a couple paragraphs. But I will say it has to do with providing metadata to things (pages, videos, anything) on the web. This metadata describes the pages and other items (usually called resources) using carefully defined means. Software can then search the metadata and make analytic decisions to find exactly what you’re looking for. If you want to learn more, try Wikipedia for a gentle introduction, and then head over to the official standards page at http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/. (Yes, that’s a 2001 date, which is ancient in the world of computers. They didn’t even have flying cars yet in 2001.) And while at the official site, read up on Web Ontology Language (called OWL, although the letters are rearranged), which is in the realm of Web Ontology. I talk about that next.

Web Ontology. In order to make the Semantic Web work, people need standard ways of organizing the information. That’s where Web Ontology comes in. An ontology is a means by which things can be organized. (Remember social bookmarking? See how all this is fitting together? Kum Ba Yah, my friend. In order to formalize a means of organizing data on the web, people need to go beyond the loose, informal tags like you see on Flickr or a sharing system like you see on Digg and instead make use of a formal specification (one that usually uses XML). Only then can the Semantic Web become a reality. (Did I just say that? I think I’ve been assimilated.) One such standard is the Web Ontology Language, or OWL. You can read about it at the official Semantic Web site, http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/.

Collaboration. This seems to be the big buzzword for the decade. Fortunately, it really does mean something, and it’s pretty useful. All it really means is allowing different people to work together. Often people even take the meaning one step further and apply it to the situation where different people can work together on a single document—that is, they can collaborate. Software that supports collaboration over the Web is becoming a big thing right now. And now when you hear that term you won’t feel like you’ve been left behind in the dark.  You can feel like you’re collaborating with the in-crowd.