Fact-check (your ass)
To use Internet search engines to ascertain the veracity of dubious claims made in the press. (coined by Ken Layne)

Favicon (favorite icon)
A square icon associated with a specific website or web page typically seen in the URL menu bar.

Feed
Allows users to receive updates from their favorite websites and blogs, as soon as new content is available. There are two main feed formats: RSS and Atom. (To add the 60 Second Marketer’s RSS feed by clicking the link.)

Feed count
Displays the number of subscribers to your feedburner feed.

Feedburner
Web feed management provider launched in 2004 that provides custom RSS feeds and management tools and allows you to add special features, and to collect data and statistics about your subscribers.

Fisk
To deconstruct an article on a point by point basis in a highly critical manner. Derived from the name of journalist Robert Fisk, a frequent target of such critical articles in the blogosphere (qv).

Fisking
A point-by-point criticism disputing or calling out errors in a statement, article, or essay.

Flame
1. To ‘flame’ someone is to make a hostile intemperate remark, usually of a personal nature. Also see: Flame War
2. To post a hostile comment, often directed personally to another commenter or blogger and generally deliberately inflammatory or insulting. A flame is generally not meant to be constructive, add to a discussion or persuade other commenters of a position. The term comes from long usage in the context of from newsgroups or discussion lists.

Flame war
1. A series of flames going back and forth on a blog, usually within the comment section, often going on for pages and bearing little relation to whatever topic was on the thread the flames are posted upon.
2. A hostile exchange of views via the Internet characterised by highly intemperate language.

Flog
A blog that is written by someone other than the indicated author. Often applied to corporate blogs or those written by politicians, where the public relations department or aides do the blogging. (flack + blog).

Froglogs
French blogs. Derisive term, occasionally shortened to Frog.

Glog
To blog about an activity in person, where the person blogging is a participant in the activity.

Google Analytics
The most widely used website statistics service provided by Google that generates detailed specifics about the visitors to a website. We use it at the 60 Second Marketer to track unique visits, page views, bounce rate and other metrics.

Google bomb
1. To intentionally insert words or phrases into as many blogs as possible to increase the ranking on the Google search engine. Held by some to be a form of ‘meme war’.
(coined by Adam Mathes)
2. To insert words or phrases into blogs, often as many as possible, with the intention of increase the page ranking of the words or terms on Google search results. (Coined by Adam Mathes)

Google Reader
The most popular Atom and RSS reader around the Internet. It is a web-based application that allows the user to subscribe to and manage RSS feeds. (You can add the 60 Second Marketer to your Google Reader RSS feed by clicking the link.)

Group blog
A blog with more than one regular contributing writer. Also: Groupblog.

Hitnosis
1. Being unable to stop yourself constantly refreshing your browser to see if your hit counter or comments section has increased since the last time you did it (i.e. about 1 minute ago). This often occurs when a ‘memorable number’ is coming up (such as a blog’s hit counter crossing 10,000 or 100,000 or 250,000 visitors etc.) or an unusually large surge of posted comments are attracted by an article. (coined by Perry de Havilland)
2. To become mesmerized by constantly reloading a Web browser to see if a blog’s hit counter has increased or comments section has expanded. (Coined by Perry de Havilland)

Hotlinking
Also known as inline linking, the use of a linked object (often an image) from one site in the web page of another site. The second site is said to have an inline link from the site where the image is placed. Click the image on this page for an example of a hotlink.

Idiotarian
1. A term of abuse for an advocate of what are deemed to be irrationalist and subjectivist values that have very little reference to the workings of the real world. Idiotarians are often socialist (quintessentially Noam Chomsky), but can also be paleo-libertarian or paleo-conservative. The defining phrase of idiotarianism is “it is all the fault of the United States”: this is usually applied to geopolitics but is sometimes encountered with regard to cultural issues, economic issues, environmental issues, the weather, socks lost in the laundry etc.
2. The term is obviously highly partisan but is in quite widespread use by many blogs. However it is not a term used exclusively by the neo-conservative ‘right wing’ and many well left of centre or libertarian blogs have used it describe the more surrealist wings of their particular branch of political thought.

Index Page
The front page of a blog or website.

Instalanche
When a Web site receives a huge amount of temporary traffic due to a link being posted on instapundit.com. The phenomenon can slow or even crash Web servers that are not configured for this amount of traffic. Also known as “Instapundited.”

Instapundited
To have your blog mentioned on Instapundit.com. Also: Instalanche.

Interblog
phrase. An series of exchanges between two or more blogs contesting some factual, political or philosophical issue. (coined by Natalie Solent)

Journal blog
1. A personal diary-like blog. Personal journal blogs are by far the most common type of blog. Most have extremely small daily readerships (albeit sometimes very dependble). Also: Diary blog
2. Journal blogs form one of the three primary distinct (and largely separate) cultural groups within the blogging world, the other two being Tech blogs and Pundit blogs.

K Log
1. See: Knowledge Log. Also: Klog, K-Blog.
2. K-logs are usually internal blogs (i.e. on an intranet and not visible to the general public) and are used as highly effective knowledge management systems and/or internal company communication systems (such as project blogs, for example).
3. A blog used by knowledge workers, where the blog itself is hosted within a company intranet for the purpose of sharing company knowledge. See also “plog.”

Kittyblogger
1. Technically someone who uses their blog to write about their cats, but is mostly used to describe mundane Journal Blog (qv) content. Often used as an epithet but not always taken as one.
2. A blogger who writes about his or her cats. More generally used to deride a blog or post as banal or boring.

Klogger
Someone who writes for a corporate Knowledge Log (qv).

Knowledge Log
Corporate knowledge management weblog.

Landmineware
Software or websites that has options checked default-yes when you sign up that, if you are not paying close attention, will do things you have ‘consented’ to that you probably would rather not be done (for example, giving them permission to give your e-mail address to spammers). (Coined by Perry de Havilland)

Lexiblographer
A person who chronicles blog terms.

Linguablog
A specialist blog dealing with regular postings about linguistics, language learning, translation and localization, endangered languages, language rights or other language-related subjects. (coined by Enigmatic Mermaid)

Link love
To post a link to another blog without being paid or solicited to do so.

Linkbait
“Bait” in the form of articles, videos, images, etc. that is created with the intention of attracting links to the website that is publishing it. The quantity and quality of inbound links are two of the various metrics used to determine the search engine ranking of a website.

Link orgy
expression. When a blogger finds that he has been linked by multiple sites, or has been added to several blogrolls, in a short time. (Coined by James Martin )

Link rot
1. Over time any large list of links will contain an increasing number of dead links.
2. The phenomenon whereby links from posts or blogrolls increasingly go dead as time passes.

Link whore
1. A blogger (qv) who will go to any lengths to get other bloggers to link to them (the term is usually intended to be humourous). Also: Link slut. Both terms are in fact gender non-specific.
2. Any blogger, regardless of gender, who makes an extraordinary effort to get other blogs to link his or her blog or post.

Linky Love
(coined by Dawson Jackson)

Lurker
A reader of a blog who never comments or otherwise indicates his or her presence. Adopted from the same usage in newsgroups or BBSs.

MSM
acronym. Mainstream media

Me-zine
1. A blog (meaning 1).
2. A single contributor weblog.
Note: The term Me-zine is already fading from use, being rapidly replaced by ‘blog’.
(Possibly coined by Dori)

Mediasphere
A term describing the entirety of the conventional media, usually separate from the blogosphere.

Meme
1. A meme is considered to be a discrete idea that replicates itself, with the connotation that memes replicate themselves and are propagated by people through social and technological networks, much like both real and computer viruses. (Coined by Richard Dawkins)
2. An idea passed down on from one human generation to another. The cultural equivalent of a gene, the basic element of biological inheritance. Amongst bloggers, meme refers to an idea passed from one blog to another, cascading throughout the blogosphere.

Meme hack
Intentionally altering a concept or phrase, or using it in a different context, so as to subvert the meaning. Also: memehack

Meme war
Using googlebombs (qv), comment spam (qv), hostile trackbacks and other technical means to propagate memes.

Meta-blogging
To write blog articles about blogging. Also: metablogging.

Meta tags
HTML tags that reside in the section of a web page used to specify page description, keywords and any other metadata not provided through the other head elements. Meta tags used to be a huge deal, until they were abused, at which point Google stopped placing emphasis on them. (For a short, 60 Second Marketer video on this topic, click Google Wants to See You Naked.)

Milblog
A blog written by a members or veterans of any branch of the U.S. armed services, made much more popular and relevant by members of the military posting directly from the front lines in Iraq and Afghanistan. (military + blog)

Minarchist
Derived from anarchist. An advocate of minimal government, often described as the night watchman state, in which the state exist legitimately only to enable appropriate law and order and to deal with collective territorial defense.
Such as state can exist to reinforce the liberty of individuals but not to ‘do things’ and is therefore a largely ‘apolitical polity’ guarding the boundaries of civil society.
Some minarchists view this as a transitional state leading inevitably to completely stateless anarcho-capitalism, whilst others see minarchy as a stable end point.
Whilst this is not a blog specific term, it is often used on ‘pundit blogs’, many of which are libertarian, hence its inclusion here.

Misting
Similar to fisking in that it is a refutation of another’s views, but misting is less aggressive and is usually humorous. ‘Mistings’ usually take the form of an imaginary exchange of views.
‘Misting’ is really MiSTing – from the show MST3K, Mystery Science Theater 3000, which was a show on The Comedy Channel about characters who were captured by malicious aliens and forced to watch terrible old sci-fi movies. They responded by commenting (rather hilariously) about the movies.

Moblog
1. A blog maintained via mobile hardware, typically a mobile phone (‘cell phone’) with a built-in digital camera. Moblogs are usually ‘photo journals’ rather than text intensive (though this varies).
2. To blog by using such a mobile device.
Whilst moblogs are general run from a phone, it can also be run from a laptop, palmtop or web enabled PDA as the defining element of a moblog is it is used to ‘blog away from the desk’.

Moblogging
A blog posted and maintained via a mobile phone.

Momosphere
Describing blogs written by mothers.

Moonbat
See ‘Barking Moonbat’.

Movable Type
proprietary. A popular blog publishing software package developed by Six Apart. www.movabletype.org

Multiblog
To create or maintain multiple blogs at the same time.

Netiquette
netiquette is etiquette on the Internet. Since the Internet changes rapidly, its netiquette does too, but it’s still usually based on the Golden Rule. The need for a sense of netiquette arises mostly when sending or distributing e-mail , posting on Usenet groups, chatting and blogging.

Newbie
Term, potentially derisive, applied to someone new to a discussion or blog, often after the person demonstrated unfamiliarity with a concept or standards of communication of the forum. Also called “noob” or “noobie.”

News blog
See Pundit blog.

Niche
In online terms, it refers to a specific topic or subject.

Nofollow
A value inserted in the link code that communicates to search engines that they should not follow the link, thus improving the quality of search engine results.

Old media
Newspapers, magazines and major network television. Also see: Dead-tree media.

Open Thread
A thread whose topic is open for definition by those posting to it. Common to blogs with large readerships that visit to exchange views, as opposed to focus exclusively on posts from the blogger.

PageRank
A technology developed by Google, that determines the “importance” of a webpage by looking at what other pages link to it, as well as various other data using a link analysis algorithm. (For a 60 Second Marketer video on this topic, click How Search Engine Spiders Work.)

Page Views
Also called impressions. A request to load a single HTML file or web page.

Paid Post
A blog entry wherein a blogger receives a compensation for posting such entry

Partial and full feeds
Whenever you publish a web feed from a blog or website, you can choose the part of your content that will go the feed. There are two main options: full feeds and partial feeds. Full feeds include all the content that is published on the website. Partial feeds will carry only brief excerpts of the content.

Permalink
1. A link to a specific article in the archives of a blog, which will remain valid after the article is no longer listed on the blog’s front page (i.e after it has archived).
2. The unique URL of a single post on a blog, used when anyone wants to link specifically to a post rather than to the most recently updated page of a blog.

Photoblog
A blog that primarily consists of photos. Long standing term and practice made wildly popular by Flickr, the online photo sharing Web site.

Pilger
To destroy facts in a ‘John Pilger’ fashion, to ‘pillage’ the truth, poor or no fact checking, wild accusations, conspiracy theories etc.. (coined by Auberon Waugh)

Pillar article
Tutorial style article, usually with the goal to teach your readers something. Pillar articles are vital for building validity and generating traffic on your blog. You could argue that this post is an example of a pillar article.

Ping
1. A ping is a system administrator tool that is an automated packet of information (64 bytes) sent through a network to another to establish the status of a target system.
2. To ping another site is to send a small automated packet of data to actuate some expected function, such as a Trackback (qv).
3. A web log notifying a server that its content has been updated. Most blogging platforms automatically ping one or more servers once a blogger updates an old post or publishes a new one.
4. PING is an acronym for ‘Packet INternet Grouper’

Pingback
A network tool used to notify a web author when someone else has links to one of their documents. This allows web authors to keep track of who is linking to and referring to their articles.

Pligg
A user-driven social networking content management system designed to manage an unlimited number of authors where the content is driven by independent authors’ contributions.

Plog
1. A personalized blog created by Amazon.com for a customer.
2. A Web-based tool used by colleagues to track and organize group projects. (project + log)
3. To blog using a Palm Pilot or any device running the Palm OS.
4. A preview blog, where products or events are described in advance.

Plogging
1. Short for presidential blogging (as in the president or CXO of a company) which bypasses the entire PR apparatus, as well as the traditionally blah forms of published speech by CXOs. Think of it as “Do It Yourself PR” for the people best positioned to make hay with it. (Coined by Doc Searls)
2. Project blogging (qv Plog).

Plugin
Set of software components that adds specific abilities to a larger software application. If supported, plug-ins enable customizing the functionality of an application.

Podcasting
To record (usually spoken narrative) audio files (usually in MP3 format) and make them available on-line so that they can be downloaded and listened to rather like an ‘on-demand’ radio show.
Although podcasts can be listened to on any suitable hardware (i.e. a computer or MP3 player), the term ‘podcast’ derives its name from the iPod, a very popular portable MP3 player made by Apple.

Pornblogs
A blog that displays or discusses pornography.

Progblog
A ‘Progressive Weblog’. A blog expressing various left wing political views.
(coined by Madeleine Begun)

Post
1. A single unit of content on a blog, usually consisting of at least a title and text. A blog is made up of a collection of posts.
2. Also referred to as entry, the individual articles that make up a blog

Post scheduling
Using blogging software to write posts and schedule them for publishing in the future.

Pro Blogger
A professional blogger that generates enough income with his blog (or blogs) to be able to live on it.

Problogger.net
Website created by Darren Rowse in 2003 to help bloggers add income streams to their personal blogs. Darren knows his stuff — I’m a regular reader of his blog.

Pundit blog
A blog (qv) focused on news punditry. The bulk of a pundit blogs’ content will be dissection of, or pointers to, stories currently running in the established media. Pundit blogs are largely the same thing as News blogs. Also: Punditblog.

Pundit blogs form one of the three primary distinct (and largely separate) cultural groups within the blogging world, the other two being Journal blogs and Tech blogs.

Other blogging terms at
Blogging Glossary – A to E
Blogging Glossary – Q to Z