Internet acronyms and lingo
Terms related to Internet acronyms and lingo, including slang definitions and jargon about texting, Twitter and other social networking sites.U - ZOM
- U (measurement) - A U is a standard unit of measure for designating the height in computer enclosures and rack cabinets.
- UBE (unsolicited bulk email) - UBE (unsolicited bulk email) is a formal term for spam.
- uber geek - An uber geek is a prominent or extreme example of the common geek.
- unconference - An unconference is a conference organized, structured and led by the people attending it.
- unique user - In Web marketing, a unique user is, for a specified period of time such as a day or month, an individual that has visited a Web site or received specific content, such as ads, e-mail, or newsletters.
- uploading - Uploading is the transmission of a file from one computer system to another, usually larger computer system.
- urban legend - An urban legend is a tale of contemporary folklore that purports to be true and is often designed to elicit an emotional response from the audience.
- user session (visit) - In tabulating statistics for Web site usage, a user session (sometime referred to as a visit) is the presence of a user with a specific IP address who has not visited the site recently (typically, anytime within the past 30 minutes).
- user-generated content (UGC) - User-generated content (UGC) is the words and photos that unpaid contributors create and provide to publications, particularly Web properties.
- venture capital (VC) - Venture capital (VC) is funding invested, or available for investment, in an enterprise that offers the probability of profit along with the possibility of loss.
- vertical portal (vortal) - Vortal is also short for voice portal.
- viral marketing - Viral marketing is any marketing technique that induces websites or users to pass on a marketing message to other sites or users, creating a potentially exponential growth in the message's visibility and effect.
- virtual community - A virtual community is a community of people sharing common interests, ideas, and feelings over the Internet or other collaborative networks.
- virtual embodiment - Virtual embodiment is the perception of sensory feedback related to an individual’s virtual, non- physical body (also known as an avatar) and the effect it has on the individual’s cognition.
- VKontakte (VK) - VKontakte (VK) is Europe's largest social networking website, with more than 100 million users.
- WAIS (Wide Area Information Servers) - WAIS (Wide Area Information Servers) is an Internet system in which specialized subject databases are created at multiple server locations, kept track of by a directory of servers at one location, and made accessible for searching by users with WAIS client programs.
- walled garden - On the Internet, a walled garden is an environment that controls the user's access to Web content and services.
- WAP (Wireless Application Protocol) - WAP (Wireless Application Protocol) is a specification for a set of communication protocols to standardize the way that wireless devices, such as cellular telephones and radio transceivers, can be used for Internet access.
- war dialer - A war dialer is a computer program used to identify the phone numbers that can successfully make a connection with a computer modem.
- war driving (access point mapping) - War driving, also called access point mapping, is the act of locating and possibly exploiting connections to wireless local area networks while driving around a city or elsewhere.
- warez - Warez (pronounced as though spelled "wares" or possibly by some pronounced like the city of "Juarez") is a term used by software "pirates" to describe software that has been stripped of its copy-protection and made available on the Internet for downloading.
- waving a dead chicken - Waving a dead chicken is a slang expression for an effort to solve a problem even when the effort is expected to be futile.
- Wayback Machine - The Wayback Machine is a Web site that enables anyone to see what a particular Web site looked like at some time in the past - from 1996 to the present.
- Web 2.0 - Web 2.0 are websites and applications that make use of user-generated content for end-users.
- Web 2.0 suicide - Web 2.0 suicide is the obliteration of information related to an individual's online persona on social networking sites, blogs and other web-based venues.
- Web texting - Web texting is two-way text messaging from the Web to a handheld mobile device, usually a cellular phone.
- Web year - A Web year is the length of time it takes for Internet technology to evolve as much as technology in another environment might evolve in a calendar year.
- Webification - Webification (sometimes seen with a lower case w) is the act of converting content from its original format into a format capable of being displayed on the World Wide Web.
- Webify - The act of converting content from its original format into a format capable of being displayed on the World Wide Web.
- Webisode - A Webisode is a single push technology episode.
- weblog - A weblog, sometimes written as web log or Weblog, is a Web site that consists of a series of entries arranged in reverse chronological order, often updated on frequently with new information about particular topics.
- wetware - Wetware refers to programmers, developers, systems administrators, cloud and IT architects and other employees that directly affect how servers, applications, networks and the rest of an IT system functions.
- white hat - A white hat hacker is an individual who uses hacking skills to identify security vulnerabilities in hardware, software or networks.
- white space device (WSD) - A white space device is an FCC-certified wireless device that can be used without an exclusive broadcast license in the RF spectrum below 700 MHz: underutilized, unlicensed portions of the spectrum called white space.
- whitelist - A whitelist is a list of e-mail addresses or domain names from which an e-mail blocking program will allow messages to be received.
- wiki - A wiki (sometimes spelled "Wiki") is a server program that allows users to collaborate in forming the content of a Web site.
- WikiLeaks - WikiLeaks is an independent, non-profit online media organization that publishes submissions of otherwise unavailable documents from anonymous sources.
- wikinomics - Wikinomics is a term that describes the effects of extensive collaboration and user-participation on the marketplace and corporate world.
- windows, icons, mouse, and pull-down menus (WIMP) - WIMP is an acronym describing the desktop user interface familiar to Windows and Mac computer users, significant features of which are windows, icons, a mouse, and pull-down menus.
- Winsock - Winsock is a programming interface and the supporting program that handles input/output requests for Internet applications in a Windows operating system.
- wireless Web - The wireless Web refers to use of the World Wide Web through a wireless device, such as a cellular telephone or personal digital assistant (PDA).
- workaround - A workaround is a method, sometimes used temporarily, for achieving a task or goal when the usual or planned method isn't working.
- XACML (Extensible Access Control Markup Language) - XACML (Extensible Access Control Markup Language) is an open standard XML-based language designed to express security policies and access rights to information for Web services, digital rights management (DRM), and enterprise security applications.
- XING - XING is a European social networking website for business professionals.
- xSP - xSP is a generic term for any kind of service provider on the Internet.
- yak shaving - Yak shaving is programming lingo for the seemingly endless series of small tasks that have to be completed before the next step in a project can move forward.
- zero rating - Zero rating is the practice of not charging customers for data use on specific websites and services by Internet service providers (ISPs) and mobile service providers (MSPs).
- zombie computer (zombie bot) - A zombie (also known as a bot) is a computer that a remote attacker has accessed and set up to forward transmissions (including spam and viruses) to other computers on the Internet.