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Gov 2.0 Toolbox: Glossary of Applications

Prepared by Department of Premier and Cabinet, August 2010

Glossary

Blog: a website with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video, displayed in reverse-chronological order (most recent first). Readers are typically free to comment on the content of the blog, known as ‘posts’, and often subscribe to blogs via an RSS feed (see below).

Crowd-sourcing: taking the tasks commonly conducted by a certain group (government, business etc) and outsourcing them to a group of people or community through an open call for contributions. Web 2.0 communications technologies can be used to leverage the efforts and ideas of large masses of potential collaborators.

Data mashup: the combination of data from two or more previously unconnected data sources to provide new context and meaning to the information. An example of data mashing would be combining crime statistics with maps to visually depict incidences of crime across geographical areas.

Facebook: a global social networking website in which users create profiles and exchange text, images and links with friends, family and community members. Users can join networks based on location, workplace or educational facility and can join ‘groups’ on particular themes of interest, coordinate events and maintain a profile of themselves. Victorian Premier John Brumby has a Facebook account and currently has 2,326 friends.

Flickr: an image and video hosting website and online community. The site allows for posting of images and video, as well as user comment on that content. The site is used by many bloggers and twitter users to store images which are then embedded or linked to in their posts.

RSS: a method of publication of frequently updated online content, such as blog entries or news headlines. An RSS feed typically includes full or summarised text as well as metadata such as publishing dates and authorship. RSS feeds are read using aggregators, such as Google Reader and browser-inbuilt RSS readers.

Twitter: a free social networking and micro-communications site that facilitates the online publication of text messages up to 140 characters in length. Updates, known as ‘tweets’, are delivered to a user’s ‘followers’ in real time. Twitter is used by individuals such journalists and organisations such as the New York Times.

Yammer: a simple real-time communication tool for use within organisations, enabling employees to connect and share at work. Only individuals with the same email domain (eg .vic.gov.au) can join a given network.

YouTube: a video sharing website where users can upload, view and comment on videos free of charge

Wiki: a website (or collection of linked websites) that is freely contributed to, altered and edited by a number of users. Wikipedia is an example of a large-scale application of the Wiki principle.

Viral: something is virally spread on the internet, or ‘goes viral’, if it is spread widely across online media sources through posting and reposting by ordinary people, as opposed to a direct and continued effort by the information source. Many private corporations utilise this online form of word-of-mouth to advertise their products through viral marketing.

Further Information

The Gov 2.0 Toolbox: Glossary of Applications is available for printing in pdf format (22kb). (This document requires the use of Adobe Acrobat Reader). .

If you would like to receive this publication in an accessible format other than html such as large print or audio, please telephone 61 3 9651 5814 (TTY).

The Department of Premier and Cabinet, 1 Treasury Place, Melbourne, 3002.

Last updated: 6 September 2010

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