This glossary is provided to help you familiarize yourself with the links on the new Member Update. Please take a moment to learn about the increased functionality and capabilities of Member Update.

RSS Feeds – Stands for Really Simple Syndication and is a notification that goes to your email to tell you that something of interest has been posted. When you are on a favorite blog site or forum, you can sign up to receive notifications when someone has responded to your comment or when someone has posted information on a topic that is of interest to you.

Blog – A contraction of the term “Web log” and is a Web site that allows an individual to write their thoughts, descriptions of events or post material such as graphics or videos. Some blogs provide commentary or news on a particular subject while others function as personal diaries or journals.

Facebook/MySpace – Social networking Web sites. These Web sites allow others to network, meet new people and share personal profiles, blogs, groups, photos, music and videos.

Flickr – An online photo management Web site where people can upload their photos and share them with anyone.

LinkedIn – A business-oriented social networking site where users can interact on a more formal, business-to-business platform. LinkedIn can help people find new jobs,
employers find employees or find someone who can help with a specific job need.

Social Networking – A broad term for a way to meet people online. In the past, communication tended to be one-way with one person typing an email and another responding. Now, there can be many people communicating and interacting online at once. This interaction allows users to share their ideas, business contacts or resources with thousands of others and get their feedback.

Tag Cloud – A collection of words that describe the content of a Web site. The importance of a particular tag, or word, is denoted by using color or a different font size. Tags typically link to Web site content containing information specific to the word.

Twitter – A free social networking service. The difference between Twitter and other social networking sites is that Twitter communication can only be 140 characters long. The users send “updates” or “tweets” to the Twitter Web site via text message from a cell phone, instant messaging from a computer, or a third-party application such as Twitterrific.

YouTube – A video-sharing Web site where users can upload, view and share video clips.