In RetroTech: NetLingo Blog

Apparently yes, you really can get "addicted" to the Web. And despite the many jokes about it, Web addiction is becoming more serious for both teens and adults.

Researchers are finding that teens who have been diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) are more likely to become addicted to the Internet. They are also finding that adults who spend many hours everyday involved in pornographic websites, gaming sites, and online communities are likely to be depressed, according to The Week.

Internet addiction has been a problem for the South Koreans and Chinese who, because they embraced mobile technology much earlier on than we did, are already going to rehab for Internet addiction. Now Americans have an Internet rehab facility too. A new center called reSTART opened in Washington, ironically near the Redmond headquarters of Microsoft. For $14,000 it offers a 45-day program intended to help people wean themselves from pathological computer use, which can include obsessive use of video games, texting, Facebook, eBay, Twitter and any other time-killers brought courtesy of technology.

Are you or is someone you love addicted to the Internet? Take this test and find out!

As more studies continue to emerge about teens and adults who "spend nearly every waking minute on the net or playing video games" the chicken-and-egg question remains unsolved: Does heavy Internet use cause people to be depressed and lonely, or do depressed and lonely people gravitate to excessive time on the Internet?
What do you think?
Erin

Fans of Apple's new iPad are predicting it will have a revoltuionary impact, changing the way people consume books, newspapers, and magazines, and bringing high-definition movies, videos, and TV shows to a protable, right-sized screen. Count me among the converted, said Farhad Manjoo in Slate.com as reported in The Week. Having just handled one myself, count me among the converted too!

The thin, flat, 1.5 pound wonder unveiled by Apple founder Steve Jobs this month is a perfect hybrid of laptop and smart phone. It will enable people to cruise the Internet and read email on a relatively large, almost magical touch screen. It runs for 10 hours, without having to be recharged. Best of all, it's a huge upgrade on Amazon's Kindle, providing a more intimate, full-color alternative in which the user sees two pages at a time, with a crease down the middle. Readers can turn pages instantaneously with a flick of their fingers.

"The iPad is undeniably cool, but it's hard to see where it will fit in," said Nancy Dillon in the New York Daily News. "It's another device I never knew I needed." The iPad has no digital camera, so you can't use it for video calls. It doesn't multitask (what!), so you can't surf the Web shile checking email (hello?). And it can't run applications that Apple hasn't approved. Having said that, Version 2.0 is sure to be better.

Tablet devices like theiPad are the wave of the future, destined to make your PC obsolete. Today, most poeple want their computers to connect to the vast databases of the Internet--known as the cloud--whenever they want and wherever they are. The iPad, for all its imperfections, has made that movement inexorable. "Whether it finds mainstream success or not, there's no going back."

It's become common practice for marketers to glean information from social networking sites. Now, like many campus admission boards and future employers, financial lenders are studying your Facebook and Twitter updates "to gauge your creditworthiness." In particular, small, private lenders seem most likely to tune into your tweets to get a better idea of your lifestyle and how likely you are to pay.

As crazy as it sounds, your digital footprint is also based on your tweets. "Chances are slim" that larger lenders bother to keep tabs on you in detail -- but if they do, it could be considered a violation of the Fair Credit Reporting Act. To be safe, give lenders, and any non-personal accounts, a different email address from the one attached to your private or social networking accounts.

Before he passed away, William Safire asked me to compile a list of new Internet terms that were both clever and relevant. Even though he referenced NetLingo in his column, the list never got published. Here are 25 Internet terms for word lovers, enjoy!

vlog - (pronounced like blog) - It is a blog that provides a video journal on a subject rather than text entries. Basically this is blogging using video, and can best be thought of as an online video diary. Video blogs may be watched on the computer or downloaded to a portable device for later viewing. Like audio Podcasts, vlogs may also be delivered on demand via RSS feeds.

blogosphere - "Reaction was swift in the blogosphere." Blogs are transforming the way journalists report, filter and break the news. Are you part of the community?

phishing - (pronounced "fishing") - An online scam in which the perpetrator sends out a large number of legitimate looking e-mails that appear to come from respected companies, but in fact lead to a spoof Web site in order to steal your information. I've listed everything you need to know including an example.

pharming (pronounced "farming") - The latest cyberswindle, pharming, threatens to reel in entire schools of victims. It is a fast-spreading online scam which redirects Web users to phony sites where criminals can capture passwords and other data. Unlike phishing, which targets one user at a time, pharming nabs multiple victims at once.

harvest or harvesting - Similar to the traditional definition of gathering crops off the fields, harvesting in the online world refers to gathering e-mail addresses or IM addresses from the Internet. For example, harvesting is the leading method spammers use to acquire new addresses.

keylogger - Short for keystroke logging, this is a computer program or a hardware device designed to record a user's keystrokes. The "keylogger" records everything the user types in, including e-mails, login names, passwords, credit card numbers, bank account info, etc., in order to steal this information. It was originally created as a diagnostic tool for software development. Known as the computer virus that takes spying on victims to another level, this malicious program is capable of switching on a webcam for instance, allowing the hacker to literally peek into victims' lives!

whack - Online jargon used to describe a forward slash (/) in a URL. For example: you may hear "http colon whack whack dub-dub-dub dot netlingo dot com". I've heard it 8 times in the last week! For a full explanation, and a second definition, look it up in the dictionary.

RFID (pronounced: R-F-I-D) It used to be for cattle, now it's for humans. High-tech tagging goes mainstream, you've got to read these real life examples!

RSS - "Really Simple Syndication" which is basically a format for syndicating Web content. To learn more about it, see examples, and get the code to use it yourself, go to this definition.

ransom note - Chances are you've seen one of these by now but didn't know it had a name. You know, those images of wavy letters
or numbers you have to manually type in to go to the next page. Go to this definition to see an example.

geocaching - Got an adventurous streak? Are you a gadget freak? How about a big fan of the great outdoors? Then this high-tech treasure hunt may be for you...

travel bug - This refers to the hidden cache or newly discovered treasure one locates when geocaching.

telematics - This describes the technology that wirelessly connects the electronics in a vehicle to external hardware, usually GPS satellites. The role of telematics will expand to allow music to download directly to a car stereo through a wireless broadband connection. In fact, the Consumer Electronics Association predicts that the future of telematics lies in entertainment: TV, movies and games piped into the car wirelessly.

silver surfer - An adult, generally 50 years of age or older, who frequently surfs the Web and spends time online. Unlike neophytes, silver surfers are considered netizens.

hot spot - Many national and local retailers, especially coffee shops, are now hot spots, places with wireless Internet connections.

tribal knowledge - For those of you who have worked on a particular project since its inception, you're more than just a knowledge worker, you've got tribal knowledge.

breadcrumb - This one is clever, it's the nickname for the kind of top navigation menu that uses a string of section names to identify where you are. Used as a verb it's even better, such as "We can breadcrumb this section so we don't have to pile up content in the left nav." Go to this link to see an example.

eating your own dog food - If you're in the software industry and you're not "eating your own dog food" you'd better sit up. Even Microsoft does it daily. The phrase "eating your own dog food" has morphed into a verb: "We've got to dog-food that product" (meaning we've got to start using our own product internally at our company).

cookies - you've heard of them, are you sure you know what they are? If you do, then you know it is important to find, view, edit, and delete some of them on a regular basis. Speaking of cookies, they continue to prevail as an important Internet technology and like many good oldies but goodies, their usage has since morphed into a verb: "Don't worry about the backend reporting yet, we first have to cookie them." Love it!

little r - Yesterday I received an e-mail at work from a colleague asking "Can you please little "r" me?" I was like, what does that mean?

photonics (pronounced: foe-tahn-ix) - foreign to you? Over the coming years it will become as much a part of the popular lexicon as "electronics" is today. It is the science and technology of using light particles (photons) to carry information over hair-thin fibers of glass (as in fiber-optics).

microphotonics - It is said that photonic crystals are to photons what semiconductors are to electrons. Things keep getting smaller.

push - as opposed to pull, do you know difference? Is the Web push or pull technology? Is e-mail push or pull? Answer: The Web is pull technology and e-mail is push. It's easy to understand once you read the explanations.

contextually aware - Wireless apps of the future will know what you're doing, where you're doing it, and maybe even why. The idea is also known as
"conceptually aware" software and networks. I love reporting on stuff like this, but are we really ready for all these sensors?

grid computing - A form of networking that uses the resources of many computers in a network to a single problem at the same time. IBM's VP for
Internet strategies says, "it's the next big thing." Alien enthusiasts, on the other hand, have known about it for quite some time :^)

cloud computing - A style of computing in which dynamic, scalable and virtual resources are provided over the Internet. Cloud computing refers to services that provide common business applications online, which are accessed from a Web browser, while the software and data are stored on the servers.

If you haven't already, use the links to subscribe to NetLingo: The Blog ;-)
Erin

Will you take me so I can text?
The traditional quest to get a driver's license at 16 is on the wane, as a generation hooked on texting, Facebook, and being driven around by parents no longer sees independent mobility as critical to their social lives. Just 30.7 percent of 16-year-olds got their licenses in 2008, down from 44.7 percent in 1988. - The Washington Post

The Always, Always, Always-On Generation
It's hardly news that young people are fascinated with social media, video games, TV, and iPods, but a new study finds the average young person from 8 to 18 now spends literally every waking moment outside of school on the Internet, watching TV, listening to music on MP3 players, texting, or using some other electronic device. That comes to kids spending an average of seven and half hours daily consuming media in some form, AND, when you include multitasking, kids actually consume close to 11 hours' worth of content in that time. Study co-author Donald Roberts said, "This is a stunner."
- The Kaiser Family Foundation

What happened with Google, something about China?
The Internet giant announced last week that it would stop censoring its Chinese search engine, after suffering what it called a "sophisticated cyber-attack" on the private Google email accounts of Chinese dissidents. Google stopped short of blaming Beijing directly for the attack, but the company's actions speak volumes. Since 2006, Chinese users searching for "Tiananmen Square massacre" or "Dalai Lama" have come up empty. Now, says Google, all searches will be unfiltered, even if it means the company's expulsion from China and the loss of around $600 million in annual revenue. - The Week

Privacy Watch: The FBI Illegally Snooped
The FBI illegally gathered records of more than 2,000 domestic telephone calls between 2002 and 2006, by invoking nonexistent terrorist threats or by simply asking phone companies for the information. The bureau often justified the privacy violations by issuing approvals for its record-collecting after the fact. Calling their methods "good hearted but not well thought-out," FBI General Counsel Valerie Caproni said, "We should have stopped those request from being made that way." Records show that FBI managers continued to approve requests for records for two years after bureau lawyers raised concerns. - The Washington Post

How the Feds Actually Helped Spies and Hackers
Google made headlines recently when it announced that computer hackers, presumably from China, had broken into its servers, said Bruce Schneier. What is less well known is that the U.S. government inadvertently aided the hackers. After 9/11, at Washington's request, Google created a backdoor access system that allows the feds to spy on email and other Internet transactions. This feature is what the Chinese hackers exploited to gain access, and it's not just foreign spies who are sneaking through the backdoor: U.S. intelligence agents have been caught using their access to spy on wives, girlfriends, and notables such as President Clinton. Criminals have broken in to steal credit card and back account information. Far from making us more secure, these systems put us all at greater risk. - CNN.com

The CES in Vegas was a Success
A comprehensive keynote address from Microsoft's Steve Ballmer and innovative product announcements from top technology companies fueled excitement at the 2010 International CES, the world's largest tradeshow for consumer technology. Owned and produced by the Consumer Electronics Association, the show this year featured the world’s most innovative new technologies, from android products and apps to tablets, eReaders, netbooks and smartphones. View a list of the new products announced at the 2010 CES here.

Is the iPad another game changer?
Like other revolutionary products by Apple, the industry is buzzing about how the iPad could change the way people use media. Apple CEO Steve Jobs described the iPad as "a third category of device" that falls between a laptop and a smart phone. Known as a tablet, or netbook, publishers are betting the device and its bright 10-inch screen, will renew interest in reading books online (which are conveniently available at Apple's new iBooks store ;-) Read more here.

As seen in The Week, subscribe to The Week here!
Happy February,
Erin

"How do you feel about the federal government's spying on everything you do online, every call you make, every trip you take?" asked Brian Doherty of The American Conservative. Get used to it.

Thanks to the "massive security apparatus" erected after 9/11 , the government now wiretaps international calls without warrants, creates profiles of citizens even if they're not suspected of specific crimes, and seizes information without judicial oversight.

In this brave new world, private companies--"to which we entrust more and more information about what we are saying, writing, buying, and thinking:--willingly turn over reams of information about their customers. Much of this takes place secretly, but it has been confirmed, for example, that Sprint Nextel provided the government with GPS locations of its subscribers 8 million times in a recent one-year period, and that the National Security Agency built a secret room at an AT&T center in San Francisco "to grab all its Internet traffic." In our wired age, the paranoids with aluminum-foil hats are essentially right: The government is now monitoring everything you do. - As seen in The Week

For more online shocking online privacy revelations, watch Big Brother, Big Business,
Erin

This just in: Text messaging is found to help develop rather than damage spelling. A new study reported by the BBC found that children who regularly use the abbreviated language of text messages are actually improving their ability to spell correctly.

A study of eight- to 12-year-olds found that rather than damaging reading and writing, "text speak" is associated with strong literacy skills. Researchers say text language uses word play and requires an awareness of how sounds relate to written English.

Improving 'hmwrk'
The study suggests that students who regularly use text language - with all its mutations of phonetic spelling and abbreviations - also appear to be developing skills in the more formal use of English. If we are seeing a decline in literacy standards among young children, it is in spite of text messaging, not because of it, according to one researcher.

The research, part-funded by the British Academy, suggests that texting requires the same "phonological awareness" needed to learn correct spellings. So when pupils replace or remove sounds, letters or syllables - such as "l8r" for "later" or "hmwrk" for "homework" - it requires an understanding of what the original word should be.

Instead of texting being a destructive influence on learners, the academics argue that it offers them a chance to "practise reading and spelling on a daily basis". Using initials and abbreviations and understanding phonetics and rhymes are part of texting - but they are also part of successful reading and spelling development.

As I've always said to educators and parents, don't get frustrated, get creative. If text shorthand is helping kids write more or communicate more , that's great, that's what teachers and educators want, to get students communicating. Read more and listen to Erin's radio interview on Voice of America about how experts are divided over Internet changes to language.
CUL8R,
Erin

It's a new year, you got a new job, and you're moving to a new city? It's all part of the American experience. If you haven't gotten a chuckle over this one yet, enjoy! Read it to the beat of the song, "The Beverly Hillbillies."

Come and listen to a story 'bout a man named Jed,
A poor college kid, barely kept his family fed,
But then one day he was talking to a recruiter,
Who said, "They pay big bucks if ya work on a computer..."

Windows, that is... PC's... Internet...

Well, the first thing ya know ol' Jed's an engineer.
The kinfolk said "Jed, move away from here."
They said, "California is the place ya oughta be,"
So he packed up his disks and moved to Silicon Valley...

Intel, that is... Pentium... big amusement park...

On his first day at work, they stuck him in a cube.
Fed him lots of donuts and sat him at a tube.
They said "your project's late, but we know just what to do.
Instead of 40 hours, we'll work you 52!"

OT, that is... unpaid... no personal days...

The weeks rolled by and things were looking pretty bad.
Schedules started slipping and some managers were mad.
They called another meeting and decided on a fix.
The answer was simple... "We'll work him 66!"

Tired, that is... stressed out... no social life...

Months turned to years and his hair was turning gray.
Jed worked very hard while his life slipped away.
Waiting to retire when he turned 64,
Instead he got a call and escorted out the door.

Laid off, that is... debriefed... unemployed...

Now the moral of the story is listen to what you're told,
Companies will use you and discard you when you're old.
So gather up your friends and start up your own firm,
Beat the competition, watch the bosses squirm.

Millionaires, that is... Bill Gates... Steve Jobs...

Y'all come back for blog updates now... ya hear ;-)
Erin

Now in print! It's outrageous, it's fun, it's a great gift. Our new book "NetLingo: The List" is both a handy desktop reference and a "coffee table meets toilet humor" book containing thousands of hilarious sayings used by millions of people.

NetLingo is the leader in tracking online terms and "NetLingo: The List" is the largest collection of text and chat acronyms:

* People magazine says "The NetLingo Guide to acronyms is super!"
* It's modern, it's shocking, it's funny, it's real, it's timely, it's handy, it educates, it entertains
* Explains the difference between acronyms, abbreviations, shorthand, initialisms, and leetspeak
* Takes an inside look at the dynamic language that eludes conformity or consistency
* Contains a cornucopia of crude humor, sexual content, profanity, drug & alcohol references
* Material is not appropriate for children under 12 due to mature and suggestive themes
* Only $9.95, get copies of "NetLingo: The List" here!

Do you remember the days when a family would sit together and chat as they ate breakfast? How about the time when adults would read the newspaper and competed only with the television for the attention of their kids?

Today the morning routine is more likely to revolve around parents checking e-mail and Facebook and Twitter accounts, and kids sending text messages, playing video games and updating their social networking profiles.

Welcome to 2010! If you're like most people, this new routine can cause some conflict and complaints, mainly that technology is eating into family time. According to a recent article in the New York Times, this is morning in America in the Internet age. After six to eight hours of network deprivation --also known as sleep-- people are increasingly waking up and lunging for cellphones and laptops, sometimes even before swinging their legs to the floor and tending to more biologically urgent activities =:-0

If this scenario sounds all too familiar, you may want to make a New Year's resolution: Resist the impulse of diving into the digital domain so early and instead, set aside family time. Meeting your own standards will be tough as your CrackBerry will be tempting you, but switching from work mode to parenting mode is important, especially if technology has started to take precedence over morning cereal. And don't forget to walk to dog who's most likely been doing a longer dance each day at the door <(-'.'-)>

Happy New Year everyone!
Erin

NetLingo.com announces the Top 10 Internet Words of 2009! Listed in alphabetical order and chosen for their popularity, here are the Top 10 Internet Words of 2009 according to NetLingo.com:

anime - the reason why kids are learning Japanese
cloud computing - software as a service is a must know
flash mob - how social media impacts world revolutions
meme - the new viral, it's an idea that spreads quickly
OMG - I thought he'd never leave, next year it will be ZMG
sexting - to send sexy pics on cell phones is all the rage
Twitter - #1 most popular term is spawning a new lingo
twitterverse - check it out for 12 more twitterati terms
unfriend - New Oxford American Dictionary word of year
Web 2.0 - the one millionth word added to English

Make one of your New Year's resolutions to learn more lingo by signing up for our Word of the Day newsletters... Happy New Year 2010 everyone!
HHTYAY,
Erin

Erin Jansen, founder of NetLingo.com, has been named to the first annual AlwaysOn "Top 25 Women in Tech to Watch" List. This year's winners will be celebrated at a special luncheon, presented by Accenture, at "Venture Summit Silicon Valley," taking place Tuesday, December 8, 2009. Selection for the list was based on the following criteria: overall innovation, ability to identify new market opportunities, commercialization of new products and services, creation of stakeholder value, and media buzz and awareness in the tech community.

Venture Summit Silicon Valley is a two-day gathering that highlights the significant economic, political, and technology trends impacting the global growth investor. The Venture Summit features the most influential venture capitalists and angel investors, corporate buyers, investment bankers, and entrepreneurs in keynote presentations and panel debates. Erin will be attending the Venture Summit, you can learn more about her here!

That's the punchline my girlfriend is using these days, she even wants to get t-shirts made. But despite all of the viral jokes about Tiger's philandering, it's sad. The lesson? Aside from his infidelity issues, Tiger got caught because of his digital footprint. That's right, recently called telephone numbers left on his cell phone and hundreds of text messages saved on someone else's mobile device got Tiger caught in the digital act.

As I research technology and the psychological impact it has on our lives, I find myself questioning what do we value most? Judging by how we spend our time, it's definitely our computers. Most people spend more time with their computers than with their spouse or significant other. More than 80% report that they grow more dependent on their computer every year and 24% say the Internet can serve as a substitute for a significant other. The fact that 1 in 3 boys ages 13 and 14 are considered heavy online porn users, and that 11% of adults say they'd be willing to implant a device in their brains that would allow them to access the Internet, causes reason for concern. (Source: The Week)

Computers are also a growing source of stress. The average person experiences frustrating computer problems twice a month and wastes 12 hours a month due to computer problems and hours each day due to the side effects of multitasking. Not to mention the stress and humiliation of getting busted because you left your digital footprint behind! As I've said before, the advice is to either not engage in improper activities or only communicate about such activities in person, in real time. Just ask Tiger, this thing hasn't even gone viral yet.

The new NetLingo book is a handy guide of every text abbreviation and chat acronym you'll ever need to know! Just in time for the holidays, "NetLingo: The List" is a great "gag" gift and conversation starter to say the least. Not recommended for children under 12 due to adult content, this "coffee table meets toilet humor" book contains thousands of hilarious sayings used by millions of people.

NetLingo is the leader in tracking online terms and "NetLingo: The List" is the largest collection of text and chat acronyms to date! More than 82 million people text regularly, it's no wonder you've seen some of this cryptic looking code... but you haven't seen it all until you've seen "NetLingo: The List." Get a few copies to give to your peeps today!

* Material is not appropriate for children under 12 due to mature and suggestive themes
* Contains a cornucopia of crude humor, sexual content, profanity, drug & alcohol references,
* It's modern, it's shocking, it's funny, it's real, it's timely, it's handy, it educates, it entertains
* It's for parents and professionals, educators and enthusiasts, everyone who gets online
* Explains the difference between acronyms, abbreviations, shorthand, initialisms, and leetspeak
* Take an inside look at the dynamic language that eludes conformity or consistency
* People magazine says "The NetLingo Guide to acronyms is super!"
* Great gift for adults, only $9.95, get copies of "NetLingo: The List" here!

Happy December everyone,
Erin

Reduce your carbon footprint with the best holiday gift I've seen! Consumers obsessed with the "need to upgrade" are flooding landfills with non-biodegradable, old cell phones, laptops, and iPods.

The MOTO W233 Renew offers a potential solution.
The first "carbon neutral" cell phone is constructed with a casing made from 100 percent recycled water bottles. It even comes with a prepaid envelope for when you inevitably need to dispose of it; just mail it back to Motorola to be recycled. Only $49.99, you can buy it on Motorola.com

In social networking news: A new worm is spreading on Facebook. It posts a racy photo on victims' walls. Clicking the image takes users to a porn site. The image is then posted on the user's wall. Yikes! It's unfortunate but true, criminals are increasingly targeting Facebook users so keep aware. And last week 19-year-old Rodney Bradford of Brooklyn, NY convinced police to drop charges that he committed a robbery at 11:50am by proving he'd updated his Facebook page at 11:49am. It's the first criminal case in which a Facebook entry has provided alibi evidence.

In international news: Egypt is launching the world's first Arabic-language Internet domain. The new domain name will be ".masr" --which means ".Egypt" -- written in the Arabic alphabet. "It is a great moment for us," said Egyptian communications minister Tamek Kamel. "Ther Internet now speaks Arabic. "But press-freedom activists warn that content in the new domain would likely be censored. "The fact that Egypt is launching this Arabic domain is ironic really," said Soazig Dollet of Reporters Without Borders. "Egypt is one of the enemies of the Internet." The international Internet regulatory body, ICANN, voted last month to allow use of non-Latin characters in Web addresses.
Source: The Week

And now for something a little crazy: A man marries a video game character... what? A man has married his virtual girlfriend. That's right. The girlfriend is a character in the Love Plus video game. They honeymooned in Guam and held a public wedding reception, read more about it here. Until next time, see you online.
Erin

Twenty-something workers may often seem to be in a "constant whir of socializing," said Jeffrey Zaslow in The Wall Street Journal. They text, they send instant messages, they even tweet. While some worry that "hypersocializing" can kill productivity and dull interpersonal skills, others see the benefits. Younger workers have a "gift for multitasking," and they know how to get "to the pithy essence of an issue." They still schedule a meeting or pick up the phone when it's necessary, says technology analyst Ben Bajarin. "If not, they text."

These days, the generational divide in the workplace isn't defined primarily by what you wear or the music you like, said Alina Tugend in The New York Times. It's defined by how you communicate. Even if you're not about to ditch your land line or use Facebook as a primary means of communication, understand how your younger colleagues communicate, and keep an open mind. For example, don't bother leaving a voicemail when calling someone younger than 30. "They don't listen to them." And if you must send emails, "make them short and sweet - no rambling missives."
See also: generation d, generation e, generation x, generation y

As quoted from our favorite magazine The Week.
Join NetLingo in the coming months as we look at the generational divide in the workplace, online, and in real life. Sign up for our blog updates here!

Unfriend has been named the "2009 Word of the Year" by the New Oxford American Dictionary, chosen from a list of finalists with a tech-savvy bent. "Unfriend has real lex appeal," said Christine Lindberg, senior lexicographer for Oxford's U.S. dictionary program.

"In the online social networking context, its meaning is understood, so its adoption as a modern verb form makes this an interesting choice for Word of the Year." Other words deemed finalists for 2009 by the dictionary's publisher, Britain's Oxford University Press, came from other technological trends, the economy, and political and current affairs. In technology, there was "hashtag," which is the hash sign added to a word or phrase that lets Twitter users search for tweets similarly tagged; "intexticated" for when people are distracted by texting while driving, and "sexting," which is the sending of sexually explicit SMSes and pictures by cellphone.

Here are some of the other words considered finalists for "2009 Word of the Year" -- netbook, paywall, freemium, funemployed, zombie bank, birther, choice mom, death panel, teabagger, brown state, green state, ecotown, deleb, and tramp stamp; to learn more about these terms, check out David Coursey's article in PC World.
AAYF,
Erin

Twice a year, the organization representing the wireless industry puts out facts and figures on how much we're using our cell phones in the U.S., and each time the survey results are announced, the findings are astounding.

The big number this time around, according to CTIA-The Wireless Association: In the past six months alone, Americans sent an estimated 740 billion text messages, which equals about 4.1 billion text messages each day!

Or look at it like this: An SMS has a maximum capacity of 160 characters, let's say (for the sake of example) that your average text message is about 80 characters long. And let's assume that your average novel contains about 100,000 words, and each word has about five letters. Assuming all that, we here in the States are writing the equivalent of about 656,000 books--all via SMS--every 24 hours. At that rate, we could match the entire catalog of the entire New York Public Library system (which holds about 20.4 million books) in a little over a month.

A few other interesting facts and figures from the CTIA survey:
* The average cell phone bill in June 2009 was $49.57, up more than a buck from June 2008;
* The average length of a voice call was just 2.03 minutes, shorter than any other year since the CTIA started keeping records in 1988;
* There are about 276,610,580 wireless subscribers in the U.S., up about 14 million from last year, and more than double the number in 2002;
* The various wireless carriers (or at least the ones who reported figures to the CTIA) raked in $151.2 billion in revenue from June 2009 to June 2008—again, more than double what they made in 2002.

In any case, if the CTIA's tally of 740 billion text messages in the past six months stays on track through the rest of the year, we'll pass 2008's total of one trillion text messages easily, ending up at nearly a trillion and a half messages for 2009 (and remember, that's just in the U.S.). Can anyone say information overload?

The full CTIA survey results can be read here. Sign up to get the NetLingo blog on your Yahoo or Google page here!

Facebook plans to keep profiles of the dead. Death doesn't erase the digital footprints that people leave in life and Facebook has announced it won't erase them either. The site will "memorialize" profiles of the dead if their friends or family request it.

Such accounts will be different from regular Facebook profiles, according to The Associated Press. For example, the site will remove any contact information and bar people from logging in. The person's profile also won't appear in the "suggestions" section of Facebook, and only the deceased person's confirmed friends will be able to find them in a search. The development comes as Facebook becomes an important social hub for its more than 300 million active users worldwide to keep up with friends and family.

And in other social networking news...

Hollywood studios have begun inserting anti-Twitter clauses into stars' contracts in order to prevent leaks of confidential information via social networking. Cameron Diaz and Mike Myers are among the first to sign contracts including language said The Hollywood Reporter. Their contracts with DreamWorks for the next film in the Shrek franchise are said include a clause forbidding postings to any "social networking site, blog, or other Internet-type site."

And finally, in a special story called "Trick or Tweet" Wired reported that as many as one in every 500 links posted on Twitter lead to sites hosting malware. The spread of malware is aided by the popular use of short URLs on Twitter, which generally hide the real website address from users before they click on a link, preventing users from self-filtering links that appear to be dodgy. As I've said before, if you're a Twitter user you should learn how to handle these short URLs. There are several ways to see the underlying URL, unfortunately most methods are still inconvenient.

One of the easiest ways to check short URLs is an add-on for Firefox called Long URL Please. It automatically converts any short URL on the Web. You won’t even see a short URL, you’ll only see the underlying link. Others take more work, for example, Untiny and PrevURL will check short URLs for you but you have to copy and paste the short URL into these sites. Or if you’re an avid Twitter user, you might like TweetDeck. It organizes your Twitter account on your desktop and can preview most short URLs. Of course in every case, you may see URLs you don’t recognize so you still won’t know if the site is safe.
MfG,
Erin

The newspaper industry is in trouble. Fewer people are subscribing to newspapers because instead we're getting our news online. It's fast, convenient and mostly free. But browsing the Web to read your news isn't the same as leafing through a paper.

Take Google News, for example. It is one of the most popular destinations for online news but it isn't the most appealing site. You see a thumbnail photo with each story and the rest of the page is filled with links and short blurbs. Yawn. But now, Google has launched a new way to view the news on its site: fast flip. It presents you with screen shots from news sites, so you don't just see headlines and blurbs, and you get a quick glimpse of the site and the headline.

To get a closer look, simply click on a screen shot, then, use the arrows at either side to "flip through" different stories. To read an entire story simply click on the screen shot when you're in flip view and it will take you to the site. It may not replace the feeling of reading the paper over morning coffee, but it sure makes online news much more enjoyable to view!
Check out Google fast flip here,
Erin