Let’s all stand and clap for my word of 2010, ‘app’!

Words. Just when you think we have enough of them, someone goes and writes new ones. Better yet, they take old words and give them new meanings -- especially on the Internet.

About this time every December linguists and etymologists announce their picks for words of the year. It's a great way to find out how with it you are. The more "in" words you know, the smarter you are. Right?

A pair of writers at The New York Times picked "vuvuzela" as the word of the year. If you don't recall, or if you managed to avoid broadcasts of the 2010 FIFA World Cup, the vuvuzela is the plastic horn used by fans at soccer, er, football games. That is, football games in which the footballs don't have pointed ends. You can read about it here at http://nyti.ms/enxqUP.

My reaction to their pick? Boooor-innnng.

My vote for the word of 2010 is: "app." That's short for application, which is a new twist on an old concept -- the computer program. Most apps live on smart phones. Apple has more than 300,000 of them available in its App Store.

Those of you with smart phones running the Google Android operating system have an ever-growing number of apps, too. I see the day when both systems have virtually the same apps. I would love to see the day when an app runs on any platform, but that won't be happening soon.

Apple went so far as to trademark the phrase, "There's an app for that." I wonder if anyone's created an app to create a trademark. Probably.

My inbox is a busy place, as marketers and public relations professionals pitch their products and services for coverage. Not too long ago, the messages touted software, websites or combinations of the two. Today, most pitches are about apps.

I've been pitched about apps for national parks, monitoring traffic, home security, Slurpees, alcohol breath analyzers, bar code readers and mobile shopping. That's just from this month.

Don't get me wrong. I love apps. My iPhone has 114 at last count. Most are freebies. Some I paid for and some I got from sites offering paid apps for free for a limited time (usually one day). The place I like to check for free apps is Free App Alert (www.freeappalert.com). It features more than 100 apps that can be downloaded and installed free that day. Such a deal.

But wait, there's more. Apple is bringing the app to the computer, with the Mac App Store (www.apple.com/mac/app-store/). This is another lesson from the book of simplification. Take a computer program, put the download process behind a cool logo that takes just one click to start, and poof! You have another app on your laptop.

Apple has perfected simple.

The Mac App Store is set to open Jan. 6. I wonder whether it will have the vuvuzela app I downloaded during that big soccer tournament.

Share your Internet story with me at agibes@reviewjournal.com.