Social networks have begun to influence the English vocabulary. In an article titled "'Tweetups' and 'unfriend' among Oxford English Dictionary's 'words of the year'" The Telegraph has a list of Words of the Year 2009 commissioned by Oxford University Press which include Tweetups and Unfriend. Other words that got my attention in the list :

Hashtag – noun: a # [hash] sign added to a word or phrase that enables Twitter users to search for tweets (postings on the Twitter site) that contain similarly tagged items and view thematic sets.

Tag cloud – noun: a visual depiction of the word content of a website, or of user-generated tags attached to online content, typically using colour and font size to represent the prominence or frequency of the words or tags depicted.

Slashdot effect – noun: the slowing down or crashing of a small website due to a huge increase in traffic when the website is linked to another, much more popular one.

The Global Language Monitor  an Austin, Texas-based company that collectively documents, analyzes and tracks trends in language usage worldwide has its own Top Word of 2009 and ranks "Twitter" as the top word of 2009.

Definitely read the Guardian article for other great words. if you are curious you can see a public wiki called the Twictionary . Another place to get familiar with new jargon is http://www.netlingo.com/

One word I have seen being used locally is - DMV : referring to Twitter folks in the DC, Maryland or Virginia area.

You Tube gained some press from a very different quarter when in an  attack on the UK PM Gordon Brown cabinet member Hazel Blears said ""YouTube if you want to,"  in an article in the  Observer.

Did you invent any new words this year? Do you know of any good resources for learning new online lingo - comment here and let us know.