Technology Reference: Media & Communication

Social media is a broad term incorporating blogs, wikis, Internet communities and online discussions.

Short for web log, an online, regularly updated journal or newsletter that is readily accessible to the general public by virtue of being posted on a website.

The basic function of Facebook is to facilitate information sharing between individuals who have indicated that they are mutual friends.

Instagram is a popular social networking platform that allows users to share digital photographs.

Cyberdating, or online dating, has come to be understood as the use of particular Websites to find people for romantic or sexual encounters or relationships.

Twitter is an application that permits users to post 140-character status updates, or “tweets,” to their Twitter profile in answer to the question, “what's happening?”

Music obtained on the Internet and downloaded to a personal computer or music player.

In computing, software with or without specialized hardware that provides the equivalent of a book's worth of information.

Handheld MP3 media player launched by Apple Computer in October 2001.

Audio and video streaming is a distribution technique for multimedia content. Streaming, as opposed to downloading, allows users to watch or listen to the content immediately without having to wait until the whole file is downloaded.

Computer games now constitute a major sector of the American entertainment industry.

The term online gaming is somewhat open-ended and encompasses everything from fantasy sports to video games, from simulations to social networking.

A computer network is a collection of two or more computing devices linked by communications channels.

Internationally developed telecommunications network for sending signals in digital format that offers faster data transfer rates than traditional analogue telephone circuits.

Global public computer network that provides the communication infrastructure for applications such as e-mail, the World Wide Web, and FTP. The Internet is not one individual network, but an interconnected system of smaller networks using common protocols to pass packets of information from one computer to another.

An external device or internal electronic circuitry used to transmit and receive digital data over a communications line normally used for analog signals.

According to proponents of net neutrality (also known as network or Internet neutrality), the Internet functions best (and most fairly) if Internet service providers (ISPs) do not discriminate among users or data, but instead treat all equally.

A computer network that allowed the sharing of resources without the need for a central server was a radical departure from the model that had dominated the computer industry for 50 years.

Initiative started in the 1990s by Unwired Planet and mobile phone manufacturers Motorola, Nokia, and Ericsson to develop a standard for delivering Web-like applications on mobile phones and other wireless devices.

Collection of globally distributed text and multimedia documents and files and other network services linked in such a way as to create an immense electronic library from which information can be retrieved quickly by intuitive searches.

Communications over a distance, generally by electronic means.

Artificial satellite that functions as part of a global radio-communications network.

Smartphone launched by Apple in 2007. The basic premise was to combine into one three previously separate products: a mobile phone, Apple's own iPod, and a device for e-mail communication and Web browsing.

Cordless telephone linked to a cellular radio network.

From The Hutchinson Unabridged Encyclopedia with Atlas and Weather Guide
Mobile cell phone with personal digital assistant (PDA) functions, first released in 2000. Smartphone users can send e-mail or text messages, browse the Web, listen to Internet radio stations (which can play in the background), manage appointments, chat using messaging, and watch video clips.

Amazon.com is one of the world's largest electric commerce (e-commerce) websites and a major retailer of books, consumer electronics, and digital media.

E-commerce is the buying and selling of products through electronic services, especially over the Internet.

From Webster's New World Finance and Investment Dictionary
The period in the late 1990s that was one of the biggest periods of market euphoria ever seen. Venture capitalists raced to fund Internet companies before their competitors.

The transmission of sound and vision programmes by radio and television.

the transmission of televised images to viewers by means of coaxial cables.

Lightproof box or container, usually fitted with a lens, which gathers incoming light and concentrates it so that it can be directed toward the film (in an optical camera) or the imaging device (in a digital camera) contained within.

Process for reproducing permanent images on light-sensitive materials by various forms of radiant energy.

Means of producing reproductions of written material or images in multiple copies.

From Encyclopedia of World Trade: From Ancient Times to the Present
The advent of the printing press transformed the dissemination of information and created what some historians call a “printing revolution.”

Radio was the first global electronic medium. It dominated public communications on local, national, and global levels in the 20th century,

Traditional animation involves a frame-by-frame drawing—each one called a cel. These cels are then photographed onto adjacent pieces of motion picture film. Today, these processes have been replaced with computer animation.

Use of computers to display and manipulate information in pictorial form.

A computer-generated environment with and within which people can interact.