Thank you to all of those who have sent emails, commented and shown appreciation for this series of multiple choice quizzes around the vernacular of digital marketing and social media. I could continue — there’s certainly no shortage of emerging language — and it’s been a lot of fun to research and post. Reluctantly, however, I’ll conclude 2010 with one last terminology test and begin 2011 with a new series of Blog posts. There is so much change, so many developing stories in the news around innovations and new practices in branding and marketing.  I’m excited by the prospect of interviewing other consultants, technology firms and peer creative agencies so that I can share the latest thinking and best-in-class applications of a brand.

I wish everyone a safe, peaceful New Year’s celebration. Likewise, I wish the best for your health as well as success in your personal and business endeavors in 2011. I’ll look forward to being in touch with you on the other side of 1.1.11!  It should be an interesting year.

1. Astroturfing is:
A) a term that refers to boastful or self-congratulatory comments made on a Blog post
B) an act often motivated by payment to the author of a Blog
C) a Blog post that may be written under a pseudonym
D) a false grassroots campaign that aims to create the impression of legitimate buzz or interest in a product or service
E) (b) and (d) only
F) (b), (c) and (d)

2. A “hat tip” is:
A) a public acknowledgment to a person online for bringing something to the Blogger’s attention
B) a flirtatious gesture in the context of an online community, such as a “poke” or a “wink”
C) a special invite or permission granted to anyone who is chosen to lead a chat or forum among an online community
D) any online extension of good will and well wishes such as a small donation or praise for an effort

3. Geotagging is:
A) the process of linking to various global websites or posts through tagging your specific location
B) a term that refers to the ability for a mobile phone user to be identified by location, used by Gowalla, Foursquare, etc.
C) the process of adding geographical data to various uploaded media such as photographs, video, websites, or RSS feeds
D) the use of several cell towers to triangulate the precise position of a mobile device

4. SMS stands for:
A) Short Message Service
B) Simple Message Syntax
C) Structured Message Sequence
D) Single Message System

5. A widget:
A) can be seen on many websites as a weather guide, stock list, flight tracker, calendar or clock, or search box
B) is a small program that enables multiple various functions on a website
C) is a type of web tool that is diverse in functionality and available by the thousands online
D) all of the above
E) none of the above

6. Viralocity means:
A) the speed and frequency for which a Blogger creates new posts
B) the number of new users gained for each single new user
C) the number of actual sales generated by customers who were motivated to purchase while online
D) the growth rate in brand recognition for a new product of service, as measured in social media visibility

Your Scorecard:
1/6:  Welcome to Neophyte City. Consider professional development immediately.
2/6:  Room for much improvement, but relax — you have many friends still living in the 20^th Century. VCR’s are really cool.
3/6:  You are showing healthy signs of successful “geekdom.” Go crazy. Look for an Internet marketing conference.
4/6:  A strong showing; proceed to pose or posture in meetings and spout confusing techno-babble with no fear.
5/6:  You should be writing this Blog. Contact me for details.
6/6:  Google and Facebook are looking for smart engineers. Call now and demand an expense account and a six-figure salary.

Answers: 1-F; 2-A; 3-C; 4-A; 5-D; 6-B

Tags: Internet
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BLOG-OL-OGY.  Noun, (1) A focus or study of all features or elements pertaining to the 21^st Century electronic practice which employs Internet technology in order to create essays, opinions, and related ideas in the form of “posts” online for a vast range of readers.

In this post, welcome to the Blogosphere, or a special feature edition of the Tech Babble Quiz that is specifically about anything relating to — yes, you guessed it — Blogs. Answer the six questions below, tally your score and please email me at dflinchum@iridiumgroup.com with any comments, suggestions, or just to let me know how you scored. Good luck!

1. An Anonoblog is:
A) a Blog published by a group or organization as opposed to an individual
B) a Blog authored by a person who doesn’t publish their name
C) a Blog website that allows posts from many different authors
D) a Blog that has no focus or which pertains to no specific subject

2. A Blog storm is:
A) when many Bloggers aggregate into like-minded cliques, forming a unique community
B) when a group of Bloggers agree to protest or boycott a particular event or form of social media
C) when Bloggers write so many posts about a subject that it becomes part of the mainstream media
D) when a large group of Bloggers are angered by a particular post, or organize over their disapproval of another Blogger

3. A Vlog:
A) is a specific form of Blog with content about the video industry
B) may also be called video Blog, video podcasting, or vodcasting
C) is a blog that contains video content
D) all of the above
E) (a) and (b)
F) (b) and (c)

4. A Bliki is:
A) a Blog that can be edited by readers or an agreed group of collaborators
B) an unpleasant or undesired comment posted in response to someone’s Blog
C) a warning for inappropriate behavior from the moderators of any social media community
D) a mistake made in a social community, such as a false identification of someone online

5. To be “dooced” means to be:
A) banned from a social media online website
B) fired for content published in a blog post or website
C) digitally copied or plagiarized
D) ridiculed or chastised in a social media community for a controversial opinion or statement

6. A Splog:
A) is a Blog that does not provide its own content
B) is generally considered to be the work of unscrupulous publishers
C) is fake and is often full of links or content from other sites in order to boost search engine results
D) all of the above
E) none of the above

Your Scorecard:
1/6:  Welcome to Neophyte City. Consider professional development immediately.
2/6:  Room for much improvement, but relax — you have many friends still living in the 20^th Century. VCR’s are really cool.
3/6:  You are showing healthy signs of successful “geekdom.” Go crazy. Look for an Internet marketing conference.
4/6:  A strong showing; proceed to pose or posture in meetings and spout confusing techno-babble with no fear.
5/6:  You should be writing this Blog. Contact me for details.
6/6:  Google and Facebook are looking for smart engineers. Call now and demand an expense account and a six-figure salary.

Answers: 1-B; 2-C; 3-F; 4-A; 5-B; 6-D

Tags: digital media, Internet, technology
Posted in Business, Marketing, Media, Technology | No Comments »

Welcome to the third installment of the Great SEO/SEM Social Media and Digital Marketing Quiz. Answer the six questions below correctly and show your coworkers, family and friends your special gift of digital gab about “vlogs,” “splogs,” and “all-matter-of-Blogs.” Tally your score and check this Blog each day as new questions will be posted often.

Third of Four Quizzes:

1. A troll is a:
A) person who seeks to promote a separate business interest by infiltrating an online community
B) person who posts controversial, inflammatory or off-topic messages in an online community
C) person who constantly and consistently posts spam to various social media websites
D) person who works online, data-mining thousands of identities of web users and gathering demographic information for pay

2. Social bookmarking is:
A) a term used to describe aggregate websites like Delicious, Digg and StumbleUpon
B) the way that Internet users store, organize and search for bookmarked resources online
C) a device that allows “friends” or members of a community to link to each other’s posts
D) none of the above
E) (a) and (b) only

3. “Open source” refers to:
A) software that can be used, redistributed, or modified free of charge
B) software that has unprotected source code which is freely available to anyone
C) software that is a publicly-shared intellectual property
D) software that is usually created as a collaborative effort by volunteers
E) all of the above
F) (a), (b) and (c)

4. A moblog is:
A) a type of Blogging activity that is managed by more than one author — usually several posts per day by multiple authors in various locations
B) a Blog that is started and terminated, and published only for the duration of a conference or event
C) a form of Blogging in which the author publishes the post directly to the web through a mobile device
D) any Blog which publishes content about mobile services, mobile campaigns or mobile devices

5. A hashtag:
A) is a method where people can search for subject-specific tweets
B) is a word that begins with the “#” symbol and is specifically applied on Twitter
C) was originally a common photo tagging device used in HTML for traditional websites
D) is programmer’s language for the actual codes that are used frequently on Facebook to tag photos
E) none of the above
F) (a) and (b)

6. Lifecasting is:
A) an around-the-clock broadcast of events in a person’s life through digital media
B) content that is transmitted over the Internet and can involve wearable technology
C) an emerging form of community entertainment online, where participants play virtual roles of a cast of characters that emulate real life
D) all of the above
E) (a) and (b) only
F) (b) and (c) only

Your Scorecard:
1/6:  Welcome to Neophyte City. Consider professional development immediately.
2/6:  Room for much improvement, but relax — you have many friends still living in the 20^th Century. VCR’s are really cool.
3/6:  You are showing healthy signs of successful “geekdom.” Go crazy. Look for an Internet marketing conference.
4/6:  A strong showing; proceed to pose or posture in meetings and spout confusing techno-babble with no fear.
5/6:  You should be writing this Blog. Contact me for details.
6/6:  Google and Facebook are looking for smart engineers. Call now and demand an expense account and a six-figure salary.

Answers: 1-B; 2-E; 3-E; 4-C; 5-F; 6-E

Tags: Internet
Posted in Business, Media, Technology | No Comments »

Are you one of those people that thinks SEO means “Stuck Endlessly at the Office?” Or, are you confident that you can navigate the precarious shark-eat-shark waters of interactive marketing? Try taking the second installment of the Great SEO/SEM Social Media and Digital Marketing Quiz to show your peers just how adept and well-versed you are in the new age vernacular of “links,” “pings,” and “optimization-things.” Tally your score and check back each day as new questions will be posted each morning this week!

Second of Four Quizzes:

1. A Blogroll is:
A) a sashimi food product that was first introduced at a Japanese restaurant in Palo Alto and named after one of the early, most prominent tech Bloggers in Silicon Valley
B) the act of aggregating several similar Blogs into one website for a community of readers
C) a special way of bookmarking only Blogs that are visited frequently
D) a list of other Blogs or references often used that is found on many Blogs

2. Pinging:
A) is what happens to let the search engines know that you’ve just updated your Blog with a new post
B) is what takes place when a widget lets you know that new users are visiting your Blog
C) is the act of falsely inflating metric reports that make the Blog appear to have more followers than it actually does
D) is the practice of making disingenuous comments on a Blog with the intention of driving traffic back to another website

3. Lifestreaming means:
A) the process using the web to document advice and wisdom about life and spirituality
B) the process of recording or sharing an intimate chronological record of your digital experiences
C) the process by some Bloggers of documenting every detail of their daily existence and posting that online
D) making a Blog post appear more popular than it actually is by linking to other high-traffic websites and well-read Blogs

4. Inlinks are:
A) the link connections that a website receives from other web pages
B) the same as backlinks
C) the primary means of navigation on the web
D) none of the above
E) (a), (b), and (c)
F) (a) and (c) only

5. A tweetup is a:
A) phenomenon that occurs when many Twitterers all comment instantaneously on one topic
B) gathering of web users brought together via Twitter
C) slang expression meaning a particular subject is being tweeted about increasingly, which subsequently helps it make the “trending list”
D) occurrence when one Twitterer posts more than 40 times in a 24 hour span

6. Tag clouds are:
A) programmer’s language for the actual code that creates the tag reference
B) one function of cloud computing, where millions of tags are all stored at a central portal or hub
C) a visual representation of user-generated tags
D) what takes place when one topic is tagged many times, creating a spike in measurements

Your Scorecard:
1/6:  Welcome to Neophyte City. Consider professional development immediately.
2/6:  Room for much improvement, but relax — you have many friends still living in the 20^th Century. VCR’s are really cool.
3/6:  You are showing healthy signs of successful “geekdom.” Go crazy. Look for an Internet marketing conference.
4/6:  A strong showing; proceed to pose or posture in meetings and spout confusing techno-babble with no fear.
5/6:  You should be writing this Blog. Contact me for details.
6/6:  Google and Facebook are looking for smart engineers. Call now and demand an expense account and a six-figure salary.

Answers: 1-D; 2-A; 3-B; 4-E; 5-B; 6-C

Tags: Internet
Posted in Business, Media, Technology | No Comments »