Podcasts are media files (usually audio or video) distributed online. Their location is made known via a standard RSS (or Atom) feed, which makes it possible to subscribe to particular podcasts and receive updates automatically. Apart from downloading and then listening to them on user’s PC or media device, you can access them as audio/video streams directly from the server that is hosting them.
Online social networking is a modern phenomenon that has become widespread with recent developments in Internet and Web technology. Online social networks are also often referred to as “virtual communities”, which is an extension of the traditional definition of a community. Unlike a traditional community, the virtual one can comprise people living in different geographical locations.
Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP). Sounds boring. No…worse than that, it sounds like something only the geeks in your IT department talk about, regularly dropping it into their conversation alongside talk of ‘RAM’, ‘CPUs’, ‘Gigabytes’ and ‘Hypertext Transfer Protocol’.
In both online and offline media, the talk is of ‘Web 2.0’, but how many of us can claim to know what it actually means? Logically, ‘2.0’ refers to a new version of something, but how could there be a new version of the Web? The Web is still based upon the same HTTP protocol, the system of IP addresses has not changed and we cannot upgrade like we do with software, so in terms of an improved World Wide Web it must refer to something else.