In looking back over the last couple posts I’ve written here, it occurs to me that I’m a bit guilty of breaking my own rules. Specifically, I’ve introduced some technical jargon without explaining it, which for business-minded folk definitely does not contribute to the idea of keeping it simple (the Kiss principle).

So I’d like to spend few moments explaining some of the terms I used in my post from last week. If nothing else, it should offer some clarity to business managers, and possibly help you understand what some of the fuss is all about.

The first term I’d like to explain is mashups. A mashup is a web page that draws its content from several sources, and displays them all at once. For example, a web page that draws order information from your sales database, tracking numbers from your shipping database, tracking information and status from the carrier’s website, and map images from a map program website (like Mapquest or Google Maps). This is all displayed on a single web page. A consumer version of this technology is available on Yahoo, under the “Pipes” name. They’re fun, nut they’re not for commercial deployment (at the Yahoo level at least).

Plug-ins are something most people know about. They’re little programs that run as add-ons to an existing program like Internet Explorer, in order to extend the functionality of that program. A good example of this would be the Flash or Shockwave player that gets updated from time to time.

Another geeky term I used is ‘Beta’, which you may or may not recognize. In the computer context, Beta refers to a stage in the development lifecycle. There’s Alpha software, which is the initial release and is almost guaranteed to have problems. Beta software is more polished and closer to being the final product that people will eventually use. And after that comes production, or stable, software. This is what you would buy.

Of course, if there were any other terms that you’d like clarification about, you can ask your technical support provider or leave a comment. Either way, it’s important to understand what technology can do for you and your business.