Glossary

Below, we share terms that are utilized in our business. They are categorized as follows: Web and Technology terms, Marketing terms, and Production (Broadcast and Print) terms. We hope you find these helpful.

MARKETING TERMS:

Audience Duplication: People, households, or organizations that read, view, or hear an advertisement or other marketing communication vehicle more than once, whether through a single media vehicle or a combination.

Boilerplate: Prewritten, standardized copy used whenever a particular communication need arises. Sometimes used to adhere to legal or company standards or to eliminate the need for original writing when a specific communication requirement is likely to arise frequently.

Branding: The overall process of establishing and implementing all the elements of a brand, including its name, identifying symbols and related marketing messages.

Call to Action: A statement made in a promotional piece that encourages the reader/viewer/listener to take the desired action. This action may be buying the company's product or service, or simply taking the next step in the sales cycle, such as requesting a product demonstration.

Fullfilment Piece: Any materials that are sent in response to a reader, viewer or listner's request for more information.

WEB & TECHNOLOGY TERMS:

Adwords: AdWords is a popular way of driving visitors to an online site by implanting certain words in the site’s text. Adwords are pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, and site-targeted advertising for both text and banner ads. The Google AdWords program includes local, national, and international distribution, and it is their flagship advertising product.

Banner Ads: Online, digital ads, usually in a rectangular shape and appearing at the top of a web page. Most websites sell banner ads on their site, which link through to the advertiser’s site

Bookmark
a routine that allows you to save a reference to a site or page that you have already visited. At a later point in time, you can use a bookmark to return to that page. It commonly refers to a feature of Netscape Navigator (a web browser) that allows you to collect and organize bookmarks of your favorite web sites.

Browser
an application used to view and navigate the World Wide Web and other Internet resources.

Bulletin Board System (BBS)
An open computer system that members can dial into in order to send email, join discussion groups, and download files. Since the 1970s, BBS's have provided an early means for home users to get online. Originally, BBS's were freestanding local systems, but now many provide access to Internet email, telnet, FTP, and other Internet services.

Chat
a form of interactive online communication that enables typed conversations to occur in real-time. When participating in a chat discussion, your messages are instantaneously relayed to other members in the chat room while other members' messages are instantaneously relayed to you.

Chat History
a transcript of a chat session.

Commercial Online Service
a computer network that supplies its members with access to chat rooms, bulletin boards, and other online content on a monthly fee basis. Commercial online services include America Online, CompuServe, The Microsoft Network, and Prodigy. In addition to their own proprietary content, most commercial online services also provide access to the Internet.

Cookies
small files that are downloaded to your computer when you browse certain web pages. Cookies hold information that can be retrieved by other web pages on the site. Some cookies are programmed with an expiration date so that they are automatically deleted after a period of time.

Copy Protection
a software lock placed on a computer program by its developer to thwart piracy. This preventative measure was widely used in the mid-1980s but later abandoned by many developers because of numerous customer complaints.

Cracker
a malicious hacker who breaks (or cracks) the security of computer systems in order to access, steal, or destroy sensitive information. "Hacker" is often incorrectly used instead of cracker, especially by the media. See also hacker.

Crossload
to send an attached file via email. See also upload and download.

Domain Name
the official name of a computer connected to the Internet. Domain names are derived from a hierarchical system, with a host name followed by a top-level domain category. The top-level domain categories are com (for commercial enterprises), org (for non-profit organizations), net (for network services providers), mil (for the military), and gov (for government).

Domain Name System (DNS)
a database system which looks up host IP addresses based upon domain names. For example if you ask for "www.thisismyhost.com" it will return 123.45.67.89. Copies of the Domain Name System are distributed through the Internet.

Download
to transfer data from a larger "host" system to a smaller "client" system's hard drive or other local storage device. See also upload.

Download Charges
monetary charges associated with downloading a file from a commercial online service. This method of information exchange is not very popular.

Ecash
electronic money designed to be used over a network or stored on cards similar to credit cards. Ecash is still more of an idea than a practical reality, largely due to security concerns.

Emoticon
a cute sideways face created by using special characters on the keyboard. Used to express emotions without words. For example, this winking face ;-) indicates "I'm joking", this sad face :-( expresses sadness or "I'm sulking". If this makes no sense, turn your head sideways and look again. Also known as a "smiley".

Eyeballs
a viewing audience for a WWW site.

FAQ
acronym for Frequently Asked Questions. A reference document created for particular topic or group that answers to common beginners' questions. It is considered poor Netiquette to ask a question without first reading the FAQ.

Hit
a single user accessing a single file from a web server. A unit of measure often used erroneously to evaluate the popularity of a web site.

Home Page
a web page that is topically the main source of information about a particular person, group, or concept. Many people on the web create home pages about themselves for fun; these are also known as vanity pages.

Host
1. A computer that allows users to communicate with other host computers on a network.
2. A chat term for someone who is managing a chat. Hosts often act as referees and have the power to turn participants into spectators and vice versa.
Hyperlink
a highlighted word or picture within a hypertext document that when clicked takes you to another place within the document or to another document altogether.

Hypertext
text that includes links or shortcuts to other documents, allowing the reader to easily jump from one text to related texts, and consequentially from one idea to another, in a non-linear fashion. Coined by Ted Nelson in 1965.

Hypertext Markup Language (HTML)
the tag-based ASCII language used to create pages on the World Wide Web. See also hypertext.

Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP)
the protocol used by the World Wide Web to transfer HTML files.

Icon
a small graphic image that represents a file or application and when clicked upon produces a programmed result. Use of this mnemonic convention originated at Xerox PARC and was subsequently popularized by the Apple Macintosh. Producing an effective icon is non-trivial because of size and color restraints.

Iconographer
a skillful designer who elevates icon design to an art form.

Internet
a worldwide network of networks that all use the TCP/IP communications protocol and share a common address space. First incarnated as the ARPANET in 1969, the Internet has metamorphosed from a military internetwork to an academic research internetwork to the current commercial internetwork. It commonly supports services such as email, the World Wide Web, file transfer, and Internet Relay Chat. The Internet is experiencing tremendous growth in the number of users, hosts, and domain names. It is gradually subsuming other media, such as proprietary computer networks, newspapers, books, television, and the telephone. Also known as "the net", "the information superhighway", and "cyberspace". See also domain, and Domain Name Service.

Internet Service Provider (ISP)
1. A business that delivers access to the Internet, usually for a monthly fee. PSI, UUNET, and Netcom are examples of established ISPs but there are thousands of smaller ones all around the world.
2. Any business that provides Internet services such as web sites or web site development.

Intranet
a private network that uses Internet-related technologies to provide services within an organization.

IP address
a string of four numbers separated by periods (such as 111.22.3.444) used to represent a computer on the Internet. The format of the address is specified by the Internet Protocol in RFC 791. When a PC accesses the Internet through an ISP, it sometimes receives a temporary IP address.

Java
an object oriented programming language created by Sun Microsystems. Java is a device independent language, meaning that programs compiled in Java can be run on any computer. Java programs can be run as a free-standing application or as an applet placed on a web page. Applets written in Java are served from a web site but executed on the client computer. Java applets have a built-in security feature which prevents them from accessing the file system of the client computer. See also applet. Here is the Java version of "Hello World!": class HelloWorld {public static void main (String args[]) {System.out.println("Hello World!"); }}

JavaScript
a scripting language that allows lines of Java code to be inserted into HTML scripts.
Joint Photographic Experts Group (JPEG)
an image compression standard for still photographs that is commonly used on the web.

Landing Page: In online marketing, this is a specific web page that a visitor reaches after clicking an ad (or link). Often, this page features content that is an extension of the link or ad, or the page is optimized for a specific keyword term or phrase to attract search engines (SEO).

Link
a highlighted word or picture within a hypertext document that when clicked bring you to another place within the document or to another document altogether. See also hyperlink.

List Server
an automated mailing list distribution system. List servers maintain a list of email addresses to be used for mass emailing. Subscribing and unsubscribing to the list is accomplished by sending a properly formatted email message to the list server.

Local Area Network (LAN)
a group of computers at a single location (usually an office or home) that are connected by phone lines or coaxial cable.

Mailing List
a discussion group that occurs via mass email distributions. Mailing lists are usually maintained by individuals utilizing list server software. List servers maintain a list of email addresses to be used for the mailing list. Subscribing and unsubscribing to the list is accomplished by sending a properly formatted email message to the list server.

Newsgroup
a public place where messages are posted for public consumption and response. The most available distribution of newsgroups is USENET which contains over ten thousand unique newsgroups covering practically every human proclivity. The names of newsgroups are comprised of a string of words separated by periods, such as "rec.humor.funny" or "misc.jobs.offered". The first word (i.e. "rec" or "misc") represents the top level category of newsgroups. The second word (in these examples "humor" and "jobs") represents a subcategory of the first level, and the third word a subcategory of the second.

Offline
1. As an adjective, not connected to a computer network.
2. As an adverb, not here or not now, as in "Let's take this discussion offline." Often used to indicate that a topic should be discussed privately rather than in a public forum.

Online
1. Currently connected to a host, opposite of offline.
2. Referring to anything connected to a computer network.

Password
a secret code that you utilize along with your user ID in order to log on to a network.

Path
the hierarchical description of where a directory, folder, or file is located on your computer or on a network.

Post
to send a message to a public area like a BBS or newsgroup where it can be read by many others.

Postmaster
the name given to the person in charge of administrating email for a particular site. According to convention, mail sent to postmaster@foo.com should be read by a real live person. Protocol|A series of rules and conventions that allow different kinds of computers and applications to communicate over a network.

Query
1. A general question posed to a person or group over the Internet.Internet users are generally so helpful that if one asks an appropriate query to the correct discussion group, one will often receive many useful responses. One caveat: it is necessary to find and read the appropriate FAQ document first. Failure to do so would be considered a waste other people's time and bandwidth.
2. A request for specific information from a database.

Refresh
to clear the screen or part of the screen and redraw it again.

Search Engine
a program or web site that enables users to search for keywords on web pages throughout the World Wide Web. For example, Alta Vista is a popular search engine located at http://www.altavista.com/

Search Engine Optimization (SEO): Improving or maximizing volume of traffic to a website by use of algorithmic search results.

Snail Mail
regular postal mail, as opposed to email. Pejorative when implying postal mail's slowness relative to email.

Sneakernet
the transfer of electronic information by physically carrying disks, tape, or some other media from one machine to another. Used ironically.

Spam
to send a message (usually an advertisement) to many discussion groups (bulletin boards, mailing lists, and/or newsgroups), without regard for its topical relevance.

Traffic
the load of packets carried by a network or portion of a network. Heavy traffic slows down the response time of the individual packets.

Upload
to send a file to a network. See also download and crossload.

Virtual
a commonly used adjective that means having all of the properties of x while not necessarily being x. For example, "virtual Friday" in a workplace is the last day of work before a break, that is to say it is like Friday but may or may not actually be Friday. A "virtual reality" is an artificial environment that appears to be its own reality. On a mainframe, a "virtual machine" gives the user all of the properties and "feel" of a separate personal computer.

Webmaster
the person in charge of administrating a World Wide Web site. By convention, the webmaster of Internet domain foo.com can be reached at the email address webmaster@foo.com.

Web 2.0: Refers to today’s latest web uses and technologies, the ‘second generation’ of the World Wide Web

World Wide Web (WWW)
a distributed hypertext system invented by Tim Berners-Lee on a NeXT Computer. Currently, one of the most popular services offered on the Internet. Web pages are viewed using browsing software like Netscape Navigator, Sun Microsystems Hot Java, or Microsoft Internet Explorer. See also browser, Hypertext Markup Language, net surfing, and triple-dub.

PRODUCTION TERMS:

Print

Stock: Refers to the type of paper used for a printed piece, including the weight, coating, and texture of the paper.

Bleed: Refers to an image that is printed on the full size of the piece, as to ‘run off’ the edges.

Variable Printing: Allows for multiple uses of personal data on one printed piece, for example, each postcard that gets mailed contains references to the recipient’s name, business type, area of interest, and years in business – any individualized information you may have.

Press Check: Stopping the press after running off a few copies of a printed piece, in order to examine the color, sharpness, and overall quality of the printing

Broadcast

Action Cutting: The cutting of film from one shot to another in a way yielding the impression that action is continuous and uninterrupted. (Film Editing)

Bed: Background music used underneath a narrator or foreground dialog. Primarily applied to commercial radio or television spots.

Dissolve: A transition between two scenes where the first merges imperceptibly into the second. (Film/Video)

Montage: The assembly of shots and the portrayal of action or ideas through the use of many short shots. (Film Editing)