In RetroTech: NetLingo Blog

Each year I identify the Top Internet Jargon of the Year, the Top Internet Acronym of the Year, the worthy terms that made the Top 10 List, and 5 online trends to look for in the coming year. 

The Internet term of 2018 is brain hacking, and the Top Internet Acronym of the Year is NSFW – Not Safe For Work; the rest of the list includes: clap back, co-working, FIRE, woke, lawnmower parent, QAnon, #TFA and blockchain. Check it out! HOW MANY HAVE YOU HEARD OF?

Everyone's talking tech this year, from POTUS to Congress and Millennials to Big Tech. Here are the Top 10 Internet Terms for 2018. Explanations of the linked terms are on NetLingo.com:

1. brain hacking - 2018 Jargon of the Year, big tech is hooking us by making smartphones a habit, even Silicon Valley is ditching their devices due to Internet addiction, digital detox and child tech addiction. ADULTS: Please take this 8-question quiz, and for your KIDS: please ask them this 12-question quiz. The term "brain hacking" comes from hijacking peoples' minds to form a habit and it specifically refers to the way Silicon Valley is engineering smartphones, apps and social media to get us hooked, and to get you and your family to feel the need to check in constantly. You know when you're on a mobile social media site and you pull down on the news feed to get it to refresh, and you see that little circle scrolling clockwise... that's called the pull-down refresh and the guy who invented it, is sorry he did because people are now addicted. Read the full story here.

2. NSFW - 2018 Acronym of the Year "Not Safe For Work" from post-#MeToo movements to celebrities tweeting “NSFW headlines” it inspired the new book “NSFW: The Little Black Book of Acronyms”

3. clap back - If Oxford’s word is toxic, then the twitterverse is clapping back… it’s a noun, it’s a verb, it’s never been used more than NOW as influencers continue to perfect the art of the clapback, thx Ja Rule

4. co-working – sharing workplaces, it’s a millennial trend with co-living and co-sharing; working in the industry and living in urban areas is impacting people’s lives and creating new business opportunities

5. FIRE – it means "Financial Independence, Retire Early" bravo to millennial crusaders who are geeking out calculating compound interest and blowing up the whole concept of career and retirement

6. woke – young and old are becoming aware, like a man who’s a feminist, or a person's awareness of current affairs, it implies knowledge and empathy as in "You’re woke, so now things are, you know, real."

7. lawnmower parent – first tiger, then elephant, helicopter, dolphin, attachment, free-range,  lawnmowers "mow down" a path for their snowflakes removing all obstacles that may cause a struggle

8. QAnon – what started as a cryptic post grew into a sprawling alternative theory about all things fake

9. #TFA – Omarosa said “they'd just hashtag it ‘TFA’ and move on when Trump did something insane,” it refers to the Twenty Fifth Amendment, as in the removal of the POTUS in the event of impairment…

10. blockchain – the muscle behind bitcoin (which Scrabble just added) it makes bitcoin transactions secure, reliable, and anonymous, it fueled a cryptocurrency craze and helps with ocean plastic too!

Read more about the bold terms on NetLingo.com and the Top 5 Online Trends to Watch in 2019:
1. deepfake / facial recognition / faceprint – OMG deepfake wait until you see the photo
2. social credit / social scoring / reputation score – scary stuff from China, wait it’s from big tech too
3. AI / artificial intelligence / machine learning / robotics – unbelievable developments
4. YIMBY & JOMO - Yes In My Back Yard & Joy Of Missing Out – new attitude (not NIMBY & FOMO)
5. CBD –  yes, as in the oil, it’s not an actual acronym because it stands for Cannabidiol

The Top 10 Internet Terms of the Year, compiled by Erin Jansen, founder of NetLingo.com
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So, Google can get hacked just like the rest of them – but they don’t want you to know it. That’s what we found out this week when they shut down Google+ (their failing social network) because of “a glitch” that gave outside developers would-be access to 500,000+ private profiles. This kind of headline has become so  common that people hardly pay attention to privacy data issues anymore, but we must! Google does... there's a reason they hid the compromising SNAFU from the government, and everybody else, for 7 whole months.

Why did they hide? Because they feared it would draw “immediate regulatory interest.” Well they’re right! Hello Congress, this time they told it to you themselves, in your kind of English: They covered up this data breach for 28 weeks, with no concern for their users’ private information, because they didn’t want to get “immediate regulatory interest.” Maybe you’ll understand the NetLingo word for it: data Valdez.

The privacy breach alone is one thing but this kind of cover up used to be damaging to a company. Even though they are reporting that it was “just email addresses and birth dates,” that kind of data gets put into algorithms that can identify specific people to target for identity theft. If data breaches are run of the mill for the masses, then maybe Google’s cover up will finally jar action from the classes. Dear Mr. President, please tell the FCC to make an 8th floor decision and launch an investigation to find out what else Google isn’t telling us.

- Erin Jansen, Internet Specialist, Social Psychologist, Founder of NetLingo.com

It’s called Responsive Website Design, or in webmaster lingo simply RWD, and it’s the new breed of website you’ve likely been seeing that “responds automatically” to your screen size. Basically, websites like NetLingo can overlay a little code to take our same robust content and make it easily viewable on all different kinds of screen sizes, whether it’s your smaller smartphone, medium size tablet, or larger size desktop. Check it out: NetLingo.com - on any of your devices, even the ads look good!

This latest design was considered “critical” because the truth is, as an online small business owner, you are always having to upgrade. I had created a nice, clean, SEO-optimized .mobi site back in day to fill the mobile browsing demand, but ultimately that wasn’t good enough for Big Tech. When Google announced “Mobilegeddon” in 2015 and started to boost the ratings of sites that are mobile friendly if the search was made from a mobile device, then “mobile first” became the new mantra. It’s understandable, especially since the amount of mobile traffic for the first time accounted for more than half of total Internet traffic, but here was another instance of Google forcing tech-savviness upon millions business owners in order to primarily service their search needs and their mobile search results.

My website started out as a flat HTML site and then got converted to a database-driven site and then upgraded to a LAMP stack site, and has now evolved into a full-blown Responsive Web Design site… and Big Tech forced my hand each upgrade all along the way. Even though NetLingo.com remains on the leading edge of website content and technology, apparently in this day and age, leading edge is no longer good enough… there’s even a NetLingo word for it: bleeding edge.

So, is this another instance where Congress should be seriously looking into Google’s monopoly and business practices if we want to remain a country where small business really matters? YES. But Congress doesn’t seem to understand Internet technology, let alone the implications. Who other than lobbyists is informing Congress about these matters and why is it taking Congress so long to make any decisions regarding Internet oversight?

Congress still hasn’t figured out the Secure Federal File Sharing Act (H.R. 4098), which would prohibit the use of P2P software on government computers and networks. I’m sorry but this bill has been under review by the United States Senate since March 25, 2010 meanwhile new botnets spread most rapidly via peer-to-peer communication. If my team and I didn’t make a decision for 8 years we’d get fired… and then hacked, or in their parlance “meddled with.” That's not good enough.

C’mon Congress. Of course, many small businesses want more and better mobile search results but does Big Tech have a right to make the millions of small business owners keep upgrading when they could possibly make a few changes on their end that would in turn benefit us all? United States citizens have been naïve in counting on Congress to care about Big Tech’s impact on small business owners. When you're ready for me to come to Washington and explain the implications of peer-to-peer networking, Google’s monopoly, or anything else Internet-related, I’m on the first plane.

- Erin Jansen, Internet Specialist, Social Psychologist, Founder of NetLingo.com

As a small online business owner, I hate to admit it but Internet taxes are inevitable. Senator Bernie Sanders introduced a bill called the "Stop Bad Employers by Zeroing Out Subsidies Act" also known as the "Stop BEZOS Act" because Sanders found out that many of Amazon's warehouse workers live on food stamps and Medicaid. Since Amazon gets government subsidies, that forces the American taxpayer to cover these costs, which in turn helps Bezos and Amazon shareholders become richer and richer. In case you haven’t heard, Amazon is now worth $1 trillion dollars and Bezos is the richest man in the world.

Under this Sanders plan, if an Amazon employee receives $300 in food stamps, Amazon would be taxed $300.  Great idea Bernie! Make Bezos and Big Tech pay, but better still, help Congress wake up. If 1 in 3 Amazon employees in Arizona receive food stamps and you recognize these workers need this type of help, Congress should also see the bigger picture that companies like Amazon are getting rich off of low worker wages and instead paying high shareholder returns. We now know that if Lowe’s, CVS, and Home Depot wouldn’t have “bought back their own stock” they could have provided each of their workers a raise of $18,000 a year; Starbucks could have given each of its employees $7,000 a year; and McDonald’s could have given $4,000 to each of its nearly 2 million employees. The workers would rather have a raise than food stamps! Yes, we all want to be rich like Jeff, but not with taxpayer subsidies.

Why does Amazon get a subsidy “cost of aid, hand-out” like this in the first place anyway --and then not have to pay it back-- when millions of small businesses are trying to compete with no assistance from the government at all? While Congress couldn't figure out who should get an online sales tax, Bezos was allowed to build Amazon through un-taxed revenue and low-wage employees, but every other brick and mortar store across America was obligated to pay, for 21 years and counting.

Who should get the Internet tax: Should it be the state where it was shipped FROM (sold) or the state where the product was sent TO (purchased). C'mon Congress, is that so difficult?  Make a decision. The online buyer, where the product is shipped TO and where the product is USED, gets the sales tax. All those years of taxes could have been helping to rebuild this country. Or look at it this way: Due to a low 5.46% sales tax in Wyoming and a high 10.02% sales tax in Louisiana, Amazon was able to charge 5 to 10% less for any product in America even before the small business discounted their product. Yes, Amazon is responsible for the demise of the sole proprietorship, there's even a NetLingo word for it: you've been Amazonned.

So, is Sanders right in asking Congress to seriously look into Amazon’s monopoly and business practices if we want to remain a country where small business really matters? YES. In fact, where is Congress in any of this?  Why did you not foresee the loss of revenue to the States and the economic burden ahead when Bezos and pals began profiting from hiring mostly part-time employees that would not be eligible for the ever-rising health care costs? Smells like lobbyists to me.

Bravo Bernie, the 77-year-old Senator from Vermont, who is leading the charge with his Stop BEZOS Act.  It’s long overdue but face it, Internet taxes are inevitable. Restoring the American dream and supporting a middle class should not mean subsidies from Congress. No to subsidies, yes to a living wage! Amazon's decision this week to raise its minimum wage to $15 an hour means Bernie Sanders' strategy is, so far, working magnificently. Et tu Congress?

- Erin Jansen, Internet Specialist, Social Psychologist, Founder of NetLingo.com