KEY TERMS
| Contents: | ADSL | Affiliate Programs | ASP | ASP Aggregator | Bot | Calculator | Click and Mortar | Click-through | Cybersqatting | Data Mining | Digital Watermark | Etailing | Instant Messaging | Internet Appliance | Moore's Law | Permission Email | Portal | Push Technology | Webcasting | XML | |
ADSL (Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line) is a type of data communication that delivers and receives information on normal telephone lines but, at a much greater speed. One of the benefits for using this 'Asymmetric' technology is that downloading occurs faster than uploading. This means that ADSL technology is particularly useful for Web browsing, since the flow is mostly one way to the user. Another benefit is that the ADSL line can be on the same line as your telephone line without blocking incoming or outgoing calls on that line.
In a nutshell, an Affiliate Program is a referral-based marketing strategy (often referred to as "Revenue Sharing"), where you increase your web site's traffic and sales, by paying other web site owners a small commission after one of their web site visitors is referred to your web site and makes a purchase.
ASP means "Application Service Provider". It refers to a new breed of software/Internet companies that are emerging that allow you to "rent" high end business software through web servers. First wave Internet companies were called "ISPs" for Internet Service Providers and generally provided email, dialup and web hosting services. However, the next wave of Internet companies are providing services and applications, such as: ecommerce, education/training, collaboration/communication, finance/accounting, customer relations management and human resources tools. The term "application service provider" is a company that is providing a software application or service from a web site.
A technology company that aggregates the application service offerings of a number of smaller companies that provide specific categories of application services ie. applications used for managing human resources, finance and administration, data storage and backup and other IT services. The ASP Aggregator integrates these various kinds of ASP services so that customers can access a complete range of solutions that are technically compatible, and serviced and administered from a single source.
Short for "robot" - a program that runs automatically without human intervention. Typically, a robot is endowed with some artificial intelligence so that it can react to different situations it may encounter. Two common types of robots are agents and spiders.
We are all familiar with hand held calculators and with the programs that simulate them that are accessories included with Window and Macintosh computers, but, did you know that the term "calculator" has come to have a wider meaning on the web? On the web the term "calculator" can refer to any program that calculates results from user input. So, for example, a financial site might have a mortgage calculator where you would enter the amount of mortgage interest rate, and term and the program would calculate the monthly payments. A courier site might have you enter package weight, to and from destinations and calculate the price to send your package from Portland, Oregon to Toronto, Ontario. These are just a couple of possibilities. Using the "calculator" concept is a great way to add more interactivity to your site.
Click-and-mortar describes a store that exists online and in the physical world. Barnes and Noble and Wal-Mart are both examples of click-and-mortar stores.
Click-through is when a visitor to a web site clicks on a banner ad or other paid advertising and is transferred to another web site, usually the site of the advertiser. Each completed 'click-through' event can be measured to determine the 'Click-through Rate' (CTR). The CTR is the number of times that an ad is clicked on per impression. This number is expressed as a percentage. For example, if your banner is served to 100 web visitors, and 7 of them click-through to your web site, then your ad has a CTR of 7%.
Cybersquatting is the act of registering a popular Internet address—usually a company name—with the intent of selling it to its rightful owner.
Data mining is a kind of database analysis application that uncovers patterns in a collection of data. For example, data mining software could analyze data from your companies' customer files and identify customers with common buying patterns. The term is sometimes generalized and used to describe software that presents data in new ways, but true data mining uses statistical and mathematical techniques to 'mine' the data for previously unknown relationships. Using these sophisticated techniques, data mining can provide managers with educated predictions of future patterns and trends based on current and historic data. Some of the ways that data mining is used by businesses include: targetting prospective customers, identifying cross-selling opportunities, and increasing sales productivity and efficiency.
A digital watermark, is a digital fingerprint that allows copyright owners to incorporate a logo or other identifying mark onto a digital file. The unique 'fingerprint' can then be tracked by sophisticated tracking services and the file identified as belonging to the copyright owner. In theory, a digital watermark could allow copyright owners to find all illegal copies of their photos, artwork or music on the Internet and then take appropriate legal action.
Selling goods over the Internet, essentially the Internet equivalent of retailing. It is one of the forms of e-commerce.
A kind of communication service that lets you create a private chat room with another person over the Internet. Usually, the way it works, is that you are notified in some way, (ie. a flashing icon) when members of your chat list are online. Then you can, with the click of your mouse, 'instantly' initiate chatting with that person. This has some terrific applications for businesses. So, for example you could set up your colleagues across the country as a chat group. When you log on to your computer members, of your team would know that you were online, and you would know whether or not they were online. This would let you ask a question or initiate a discussion and expect, and probably get, a more or less immediate response.
A device specially designed for accessing email and/or the web. It will normally plug into either a standard telephone jack or has a wireless connection to the Internet. Examples of Internet appliances include, Internet TV services, such as Web TV, which are designed for home use, or network computers, which are used primarily by businesses.
Moore's Law, not to be confused with Murphy's Law, was formulated by Gordon Moore in 1965. Moore noticed that up to that time microchip capacity seemed to double every year. In the thirty years plus since Moore formulated the 'law' it has been remarkably accurate as a predictor of the speed of growth of both transistor density and microprocessor performance.
Permission email is just what it sounds—it's contacting a prospect through email after they've given you permission to. It's another tool in online marketing—customer followup email (we've noticed you bought this CD—would you like this new one?) or opt-in email newsletters (like this one) are examples of permission email.
This is an Internet marketing term used to describe a web site that is intended to be the first place through which web surfers access the web. The original models for portal sites were online services like AOL or Sympatico. Now, most search engines and many other business web sites have transformed themselves into web portals to attract and keep larger audiences. Typically, a portal site will offer extensive links to other web sites of interest, a search engine, as well as email, web hosting or other services to entice web surfers to use the site as a 'point of entry' or portal to the web. A good example of a general interest portal site is www.about.com
A technology application that sends data to a client without the client requesting it. The World Wide Web is based on a pull technology where the client browser must request a Web page before it is sent. Broadcast media, on the other hand, are push technologies because they send information out regardless of whether anyone is tuned in. Increasingly, companies are using the Internet to deliver information push-style. One of the most successful examples of this is PointCast, which delivers customized news to users' desktops. Probably the oldest and most widely used push technology is e-mail. This is a push technology because you receive mail whether you ask for it or not—that is, the sender pushes the message to the receiver.
Broadcasting information over the Internet, in particular the world wide web. Unlike other web surfing, which is based on a pull method (the web surfer downloads the web pages) webcasting uses push technologies.
XML is "Extensible Markup Language"—it is an add-on to basic HTML that allows web pages to deliver structured data and communicate better with databases. In 1999, software developers adapted it as a standard, and started to promote their services and software as "XML compliant". Will be a major advance for the exchange of data on the Internet.