Blog tips: Glossary of blog terms

Archives: The past posts of a blog, organised by month, week or category.

Autocasting:Automated form of podcasting that allows bloggers and blog readers to generate audio versions of text blogs from RSS feeds.

Blog: Short for ‘web log’. An easily, instantly and frequently updated website usually focused around a topic, industry or personality.

Blog platform:The software that manages a blog’s content and publishing. Examples include Wordpress and Typepad and Blogger.

Comments:Responses to a blog post submitted by a blog’s readers or written in response to readers by the blog’s author.

Feed:A small file containing a blog’s latest updates. Feeds are read by a news aggregator or feed reader.

Flog: A portmanteau of “fake” and “blog”. A blog that’s ghostwritten by someone, such as in the marketing department.

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.

News aggregator:A website or application that collates feeds into a customised newspaper/home page. Also called a news readers, feed reader or RSS aggregator.

Permalink:A permanent and direct link to a particular blog post.

Photoblog: A blog mostly containing photos, posted constantly and chronologically.

Ping: A notification sent to various online services that a blog has been updated with new content.

Podcast: A distribution method for Internet Audio and video through direct download.

Post: An entry in a blog.

RSS: A popular feed format. RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication.

Spam blog: A blog which is composed of spam. A Spam blog or “any blog whose creator doesn’t add any written value.”

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.

Vlog: A video blog with video posts instead of text.