English Vocabulary: 12 Internet words

Hi again. Welcome back to www.engvid.com. I'm Adam. Today's lesson is hopefully very

useful to all of you. We're going to look at Internet vocabulary, how to survive in

cyberspace. Just in case you don't know, "cyberspace" is the Internet, the Internet world where

everything happens. These are some very common words you'll see today. Where'll you see them?

Everywhere. You'll see them in news reports, articles about entertainment, sports, finance,

business -- everywhere. Because the Internet is everywhere, okay? Cyberspace -- huge. So

let's start. "Viral", okay? This is an adjective. When

something "goes viral" -- "to go viral". When something "goes viral", it means it spreads

very quickly. So for example, I think all of you probably by now have seen Miley Cyrus

shake her thing, as it were. That video of her shaking herself went viral. It became

a huge hit. Thousands, millions of people saw it all over the world. I think another

example is PSY. You know the "Gangnam Style" thing? I'm not going to do it for you; don't

worry. But he went viral as soon as his video came up. Keep in mind it goes with this verb.

"It went viral." "It will go viral." Many books about how to create a viral video, for

example. So it's usually images, videos, sometimes articles, depends on what topic it is.

I know that you know what "Google" is. Everybody knows Google. "Google" as a noun is the name

of a company. It comes from a big number. I'm not going to try to say it because it's

too big for me to say, but basically, they got this name from mathematics, I guess. But

do you know that it's also a verb? "To google", and in the past tense it's "I googled it."

And what am I doing right now? "I am googling." Now, some people will write with the "e";

most people will write without the "e". I don't really think it matters all that much.

People will understand what you're saying. "To google" basically means "to search". This

brand name, the brand name of the company, has become so popular that it is used for

any search thing you do on the Internet. If you're using Yahoo!, you're not "yahooing".

You're still "googling". If you're using Bing or whatever other search engine, you're probably

still "googling" because that's the word that's become common. Completely unrelated: In Canada

if you want a tissue to blow your nose, most likely you will ask for a Kleenex. A "Kleenex"

is a brand name; it's a company name. Same idea. Google is that huge.

"To post" or "a post", again noun or verb. A "post" is something that you put on the

Internet, something you put on your Facebook page, something you put on your blog page,

on your website. "To post" means "to put up", to put up for the Internet to spread, hopefully

go viral, get you a lot of views, which we will talk about in a second. Now, if you keep

a blog, then you want to have good posts, and hopefully they will go viral or will come

high on the Google search, okay? "Blog" is short for "web log". So "web log"; "blog".

Now, what is a "log"? A "log" is like a journal or a diary. So a "blog" is usually

a personal website where people put whatever they want: comments or ideas or pictures or

whatever or videos, in which case it's a vlog -- a "video log". And what you want... you're

going to post your articles or your ideas, and you want people to come and see them.

You're sharing this with the world. A "tweet" comes from the company Twitter.

A "tweet" is a short message, 140 characters or less, so letters, spaces, dashes, etc.

It's something that you share with whoever you want, whoever follows you on Twitter.

You tweet this. Sometimes people will "retweet": They will take your tweet, your message, and

send it out to more people. So hopefully, if many people see your tweet, maybe it will

go viral and the whole world will see it. Maybe.

"Phishing"." Phishing" is a very interesting phenomenon, okay? What people do is they send

you an email, and they hope that you will respond and give them information: bank accounts,

passwords, usernames, etc. So they send you a letter saying, "Oh, hi, you know. I'm your

bank. There's a bit of a problem with your credit card. Can you send me your credit card

number and expiry date and the code on the back just so I can make sure that it's actually

not a problem?" Well, that's the problem. Be very careful of phishing. It sounds like

"fish" because they're sending you a bait, they're sending you a little worm and hope

you swallow it. Don't, okay? "Bits and bytes". Now, when I was a kid, "Bits

and Bites" were a snack that you buy in a bag -- all kinds of little pretzels and, like,

corn chips, and all kinds of things. Not this "bits and bytes". "Bit": One "bit" is a very

small piece of information that is used in computer programming. "Bytes" are a collection

of eight bits, eight bits. Now, then you have "kilobytes", which is basically a thousand

bytes -- 1024 to be exact, but around a thousand. Kilo -- thousand. "Megabytes" are a thousand

kilobytes. "Gigabytes" -- "gigabytes" are a thousand megabytes. Then, of course, you

have "terabytes", which are a thousand gigabytes -- lots of bytes. Lots of bits. Lots of information.

A "meme": This in an interesting word. It's become very popular these days on the Internet.

When someday sees a picture or a video or any sort of image and it becomes very, very

popular, people start to take that image and put it in a different context, okay? For example,

maybe a few months ago there was a picture of a guy who was called "the most photogenic

guy in the world". A guy, you know, handsome guy, smiling, everybody thought, "Oh, what

a great picture." Suddenly you see his picture in every situation. You see big sumo wrestlers

with the guy's face. He's one of the sumo wrestlers. You see somebody biking or running

-- the guy's face. You see a wedding picture with the guy standing right there. So that

is a "meme". Basically, it's a copied image or an idea that spreads and is used in different

contexts. "Domain": "Domain" is basically a website.

The "URL" is the address. So for example: www.name.com. So this whole line that you

put in the top bar of your Internet Explorer -- whatever, Mozilla Firefox -- this is the

"URL". That's the address, and this is the domain: engvid.com.

"Views": "Views" means how many times your site or your video or your picture or your

post has been looked at. So now, you have to think about "see", "watch", "look", and

"view". You've got another word in the mix now. If you go to YouTube, most videos will

have underneath: number of times -- number of views: how many people have seen this.

Next, we have "SPAM". "SPAM" is junk email, garbage email. People send you advertisements,

or sometimes the SPAM is used for the phishing. It's just garbage email that you don't really

want to look at -- you want to avoid. Sometimes it has a virus. A "virus" is bad information

that will destroy your computer. "SPAM" comes from the meat, the brand name "SPAM", which

is meat in a can. Now, the problem is nobody actually knows what's in this meat, what is

in the can. It's mystery meat. Just like this email is mystery email; you don't really want

to touch it; you don't really want to ingest it in any way, shape, or form.

And, of course, we have "cookies". Not like "Mmm, cookies!" Not that kind of cookie. "Cookies"

are pieces of information that a website that you go to... You go to a website. The server

-- the company that has the website -- sends information to your computer. That information

stays on your computer. Every time you go back and forth to this website, they see what

you are doing, and they can customize the delivery of their website to you. So they

know what you like, what other websites you've been to, so they know which advertisements

to give you, they know how to set up their website so that you like it. You can erase

cookies, and every once in a while you should erase cookies and clean your computer. Okay.

Hopefully this is all very helpful to you in protecting yourself and using the Internet

and understanding things you're reading about in the Internet. You can also make sure, if

you want to make sure how to use these words, go to www.engvid.com. There is a quiz there

that you can practice these words. And, of course, go to YouTube. See how many views

this lesson has gotten on YouTube, and come see us again. Bye.