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.
