Sweding is a term coined in the movie “Be Kind, Rewind” (see the wikipedia entry about the movie.) It’s best described as when fans “take classic films and remake them into short films using videotape, a virtually nonexistent budget, amateur actors, and insane amounts of creativity.” (quote from alwayswatching.org).
The movie’s makers have capitalized on the sudden enthusiasm around the concept of “sweding” in the real world and have created an excellent YouTube channel which promotes the film and shares sweded materials from regular people around the world.
So here it is: a film invents a word, Internet users run with it, and the filmakers run with the Internet-users’ idea and turn it into a fantastic marketing vehicle. Genius.
(And oh, btw some of the sweded film submissions are hilarious!)
While most of us call them “doohickies” or “thingamabobs” a chicklet is a small graphic which ties to a larger web service. Examples include the “bookmark this” buttons and icons you see on sites, the Facebook “+Share” link embedded on pages, and small icons for Digg/Delicious/Sphere/etc. found all over the place.
What’s notable about a chicklet is it’s small size compared to its enormous functionality — they rely on memory and recognition to encourage the user to click on them… which means that a function cannot be “chicketized” unless it’s already reached enough critical mass to garner user recognition.
Chicklets are focused almost entirely around subscribing, sharing, sending, and bookmarking behavior. As such, their small size is convenient since prominent placement is key to encouraging the right usage by site visitors.
Strangely, I assume chicklets are named after the gum, but the gum is spelled “chiclet.”
To scrobble is to grab information on a users personal computer, upload and add it to a database online, and then make it available to other services or social networking applications.
An important aspect of scrobbling is how it’s different from “uploading” or “updating” or “linking” in that information which is suitable for scrobbling is both trivial and frequent data which holds LITTLE OR NO meaning without some sort of social networking connection.
To be fair, Last.fm is the only social networking application that uses the term “scrobbling” in the way I describe. So, this post is more a prediction than a definition. I predict this term — and the activity it describes — will become increasingly important and prevalent to the growth of the Internet and may even perhaps be the seed of what gets called Web 3.0. (Assuming we all just don’t phone it in right now and declare that Web 3.0 is the mobile web. 
In much the same way that my mere presence at my computer is “scrobbled” on to AIM as “he’s online now” and becomes a veritable invite for my friends and associates to communicate with me, other information can be scrobbled and connected in ways that increase meaning for both me and my associates/friends,/colleagues/neighbors.
Imagine if the mundane details of your life are suddenly and easily scrobbled online, where they can be managed and related too. All the sudden, my grocery list can become a tasting menu for my friends (or an online order for my grocer, or a nutritional analysis for my doctor), the books my friends read become a recommendation for me… the shows my in-laws watch become the source of Thanksgiving table conversation.
[techtags: scrobbling]
Both these terms represent methods by which thieves try to steal personal information or money. The important difference between them is:
- Phishing is a CON GAME in which emails or fake web sites are constructed in order to trick users into entering their personal information. In a large sense, you can defend yourself against phishing by being a smart consumer, smart emailer, and letting that “something smells wrong about this website” feeling guide you.
- Pharming is a TECHNICAL HACK which involves attacks on DNS servers and can result in users arrival at incorrect websites despite the presence of the correct address in their address bar. Pharming is more insidious and harder to defend against — and it can affect DNS systems all the way down to your individual computer.
As you know, inbound links are “good.” They not only bring traffic, but they increase the social network around a site and dramatically boost pagerank in the major search engines. Linkbait is just that — content specifically designed to increase inbound links and promote shareability… and sometimes that means that the value of the content is sacrificed to its value as a link attractant. And sometimes that means the links themselves are less-than-relevant to the brand or site in question.
We do this in the offline retail world, of course. Loss leaders and hot-promo items (like those five Playstation 3’s that sell out two minutes after opening) are examples of offline linkbait. They get people visiting, talking, and engaging with your store.
