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At 9:38 on 22 Jul 98, Steve Yelvington  wrote in part:

> Definition: Current ill-defined buzzword.

Come on, folks. We really have to do a better job thinking up future 
buzzwords. 

I've been using "aggregation," "aggrandizement" and "meta-sites" 
(and occasionally "leech sites" and "gateways") instead of "portals." 

Before that I was stuck with "passive delivery" instead of "push." 
What I called "visual inverted pyramid" others called "non-linear 
storytelling" or, better yet, "deconstruction/reconstruction." What 
to me was "user-customized" others called "Daily Me." (Just to 
confuse things, when both were dying out, they later merged this with 
"push.") 

I thought I had hit paydirt with "spot ads," but I lost that one to
"interstitials." Alas, my "billboards" already had become others' 
"banners." "Repurposed" became "shovelware." I still like "nav 
margins" instead of "left rails" and "promotional strategies" instead 
of "up-sells." And I continue to hold out hope for "cybertext," but 
it seems to be losing ground to "synergy links." 

The real secret to understanding current ill-defined buzzwords is to 
look back about six to nine months in the archive of online-news, 
find a topic that was fairly thoroughly debated, ignore the most 
sensible half of that debate, then wait until some re-think tank 
comes up with a better selling name for the idea, particularly if 
it's something that they can wrap around sales pitches for additional 
software or services necessary to cope with the coming 
"revolution" the buzzword bodes of.

What we really need, I guess, is a list of the Top 100 Buzzword 
Creators. Just be sure you don't confuse it with the Better Business 
Bureau's Watch List.

Which reminds me of the only buzzword I really like: "cybernetic 
snake oil."







              ERIC K. MEYER - meyer@newslink.org
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