The 11 Most Confusing High-Tech Buzzwords

If you don’t understand what the cloud is, don’t feel bad. You certainly are not alone.

“Big Data” and “The Cloud” have landed in the No. 1 and No. 2 spots, respectively, on an annual list of the Most Confusing Tech Buzzwords of the Decade (Thus Far).

The Global Language Monitor, an Austin, Texas-based media analytics company that tracks language trends worldwide, uses a proprietary algorithm to determine the list, which is released each year at the SXSW conference in Austin.

Here’s a full list of the Most Confusing High-Tech Buzzwords Since 2010:

1. Big Data
2. The Cloud
3. The Next Big Thing
4. Social Discovery
5. Web 2.0 (3.0 and so on)
6. Solid State  (as in “solid state” disks)
7. CERN (The acronym of The European Organization for Nuclear Research)
8. Solar Max
9. De-dupe
10. 3G/4G/5G
11. SoLoMo

The Global Language Monitor also named the Most Confusing Tech Acronym of 2012:

The winner is SOA (solutions oriented architecture).

In the comments section below, please share the high-tech buzzwords you think are most confusing. There surely are more than 11 of them.