Vocabulary Lesson and Tenori-On

So there was some feedback from a few readers yesterday (not only the one who posted a comment) that I might have ...um... gotten too technical on people and way into discussing what I was doing rather than sticking to food, life in munich, friends, etc. Sorry Balu. (Although you should know that there are other readers who dislike my food postings...)

I certainly don't want to alienate people or use strange vocabulary that you don't understand.

In Germany especially, I have to be careful about vocabulary. I was in the car the other day with a neighbor of mine - we were visiting Ikea - and I was talking about life in Singapore, the MBA, etc. And I referred to "the MBA" a few times and finally at some point in the conversation she said..."so what is an MBA?" And I have to admit, it was tough to keep my expression neutral, but really that's not quite fair. In Germany, MBAs are not that common, and the equivalent here is simply called something else.

With this in mind and for those who are interested, here's my best shot at some definitions from yesterday:

1. web analytics: A generic term meaning the study of the impact of a web site on its users. E-commerce companies often use Web analytics software to measure such details as how many people visited their site, how they came to the site (i.e., if they followed a link to get to the site or came there directly), what keywords they searched with on the site's search engine, how long they stayed on a given page or on the entire site, what links they clicked on and when they left the site.

2. target audience: (Zielgruppe) simply the people that read my blog in this case. The people that I am addressing.

3. widgets: This is a bit hard to describe. Two examples are right there on the right hand side of my blog - the 3jam widget (where you can send me a text message to my mobile for free) and the Voki widget (where I greet you with the little cartoon image and where you CAN ALSO LEAVE ME A MESSAGE - by recording one there.) Essentially widgets are little pieces of code that are not whole websites by themselves, but have a function that you can use within another website.

4. my voki - this is the name for the widget that I just installed (the cartoon of me). The company calls it a "voki."

5. avatar - An avatar is an Internet user's representation of himself or herself, whether in the form of a three-dimensional model used in computer games, or a two-dimensional icon (picture) used on Internet forums and other communities. So the voki, which is a widget, is an avatar widget. I know, it's getting confusing...

6. web 2.0 - watch the video link I posted yesterday. The term refers to a perceived second generation of web-based communities and hosted services — such as social-networking sites and wikis — which aim to facilitate collaboration and sharing between users. (Sorry - I know I'm speaking Greek here - I need to define some of the words in the definition...)

So on a MUCH LIGHTER NOTE. Take a look at this video. I had a me-consumer-want moment when I saw this. This is a new musical instrument (called a Tenori-On) that has been released in Great Britain. It looks really interesting. I thought about getting one of these INSTEAD of an iphone. (I mean...if I have to choose at some point...maybe this would actually be more fun...then again..maybe not.)