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Glossary of Tech Terms

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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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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 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.

Upload

Transferring data (usually a file) from the computer you are using to another computer. The opposite of download.

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.

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.