Why Words Matter – Can you Feed me that Chicklet?

13 years ago I was participating in group discussions on the FidoNet network.  I even had a personal profile, and could even engage groups of my friends in discussions and what not.  In retrospect, I was using a social networking service.

10 years ago I setup my first web-page on Geocities.  It had a guest-book, a comments section, the works.  In retrospect, I was running a blog.  The site also had a “links” section (Blogroll) and even had icons linking to other sites (Chicklets)

10 years ago I was receiving web content via push technology.  Remember Pointcast and Backweb?  In retrospect, I was processing content feeds (RSS).

We seem to have an urge to invent and reinvent new terms for old concepts.   From a purely cynical standpoint, one would simply point to the Hype Machine – RSS feeds are hip (and you can raise money off them), so let’s flog them to death.

But I think there are more compelling reasons that underscore this phenomena.

1. Using these specialized terms enables us to have a more focused, concise discussion.  The terms imply a shared common understanding that includes expected functionality, look and feel, APIs, standards, etc.  “I’ve setup a new chicklet” is a shorter, more informative, statement than “I’ve setup an image link which takes you to another site…”.

2. This shared understanding enables us to extend the terms in innovative ways, which would have been impossible before.  Whereas my Geocities site can be compared to a blog, it is totally foreign to the concept of a video/photo/mobile blog.  And yet once we had defined a blog, it is easy to extend its usage.  The terms we define early on become the building blocks of the next innovative layer.

3. Using these specialized terms allows us to focus on what is really important.  “I’ve set up a new social network for book-lovers“.  We immediately understand that the importance of this statement has to do with book-lovers.  We’re no longer bogged down by the term “social network”.

4. Most importantly, defining new terms tells us where we stand in terms of institutionalizing our space.  By creating a specialized jargon we clearly define who we are, what we do, what we do not do, etc.  It gives us a communal sense and clearly separates “us” from “them”.  Where would lawyers and physicians be without their mambo-jambo terminology?  We do away with the terms of the past to symbolize the uniqueness of what we do in the present.  

This is the process by which pure hype is transformed to a shared experience which takes a life of its own.   It is when your parents start referring to blogs that you know something has happened at the societal level. 

5. Practically, these shared terms simply make it easier for us to communicate.  Imagine trying to pitch a social network concept to VCs 10 years ago.  Without being able to use such concepts as tags, blogs, feeds – you’d have to hack at it, feature-by-feature, on a proprietary basis.

Of course, this is an evolutionary process.  We tend to over-hype and to create many more terms than we’ll ever be able to use.  We’re also using extremely ill-defined terms (Web 2.0 anyone?).  But the evolutionary process ensures that (a) selection shall over time weed out the less relevant terms and (b) terms shall adapt over time to the changing environment.

I find this whole topic very exciting – we are in the process of creating new products and services, but we are also creating a new language, a new way to look at the world.  Whether terms are purely internal to the industry (end users don’t care for AJAX or chicklets) or whether they cater to the general population (Podcasts, blogs, social networks, tags, etc.), this is an exciting process to observe.

— Oren