Internet Word of the Day Archive

November 01, 2012

Slang for being constantly on the Internet :-)

I Love You

Slang for the "yadi yadi yadi" chit chat that seems to occur during the first 15 minutes in corporate meetings.

November 02, 2012

Thank You Very Much

A business clause in a contract, stating that an advertiser can cancel a campaign at any time, and be refunded for the unused portion, without a penalty.

November 03, 2012

To depict something. For example, an HTML author creatively renders text and graphics on a Web page into columns and rows, and a browser automatically renders the Web page by interpreting the HTML code. In graphics, rendering is the conversion of an outline drawing into a fully formed, 3-D image (which often takes a great deal of time to complete).

Common language usage includes, "That project was such hard work, it rendered me useless for the whole weekend." A "render farm" is slang for the graphic arts division of a company, or for the actual room in which a bunch of graphic artists work their magic.

What You See Is A Load of Bullocks

November 04, 2012

A circuit board that plugs into an expansion slot in a computer, giving the computer additional capabilities. Popular cards include: internal modem cards, memory expansion boards, sound boards, and video adapters.

In Your Dreams

November 05, 2012

The literati of the digital world, it includes people in the industry who are considered knowledgeable, hip, or otherwise in-the-know with regard to the online revolution. A popular digerati gathering is the annual TED Conference, a three-day party for notable people in technology (T), entertainment (E), and design (D), orchestrated by Richard Saul Wurman.

I Totally Agree

November 06, 2012

Coffee Freak

The name for a cord or strap that is worn around the neck to hold an identification badge, whistle, keys, cell phone, thumb drive or other small object.

Lanyards come in various colors and types and can also be used as a tchotchke: an advertising tool with� customized logo or name printed on the strap. However it's totally geeky to walk around with a lanyard so you may want to take it off when venturing out into the real world otherwise you will be typecast as a modern version of the plastic pocket-protector set.

A lanyard can also come with different hardware. The O-ring is common for using with a whistle or keys. It may also have a split-connector so that it is easily removed and snapped back into place. A swivel snaphook is good for ID badges that have a rectangular hole at the top, and the bulldog clip is the type that when squeezed, both serrated jaws open, similar to how an alligator clip works.

Lanyards are used by businesses, schools, hospitals, at special events, conventions, reunions, in many recreational activities, and for backstage passes, etc., and because they are conveniently worn around the neck, they are considered more convenient than the clip style (which results in the dreaded wall humping).�

November 07, 2012

I love you

The stage of venture capital financing for a company that immediately precedes an IPO. Investors entering in this round have lower risk of loss than those investors who have invested in an earlier round. Mezzanine level financing can take the structure of preferred stock, convertible bonds or subordinated debt.

November 08, 2012

A domain name that contains more than 26 characters is said to be long. In the past, domain names could not be longer than 26 characters, but the limit was later increased to 67 characters (including the extension, such as .com or .org).

According to The Longest List of Stuff, a URL can actually be a maximum of 263 characters. Here's the longest domain name to date:

http://thelongestlistofthelongeststuffatthelongestdomainnameatlonglast.com/wearejustdoingthistobestupidnowsincethiscangoonforeverandeverandeverbut
itstilllookskindaneatinthebrowsereventhoughitsabigwasteoftimeandenergyand
hasnorealpointbutwehadtodoitanyways.html

Private & Confidential

November 09, 2012

A company that sells advertising for many individual Web sites, it is designed to let ad buyers reach broad audiences relatively easily by buying online ads in what is known as run-of-category or run-of-network. Ad networks use ad server software to generate traffic reports for advertisers and publishers and to collect data about users (see: privacy policy).

If you are thinking about putting some banners on your Web site, realize that most ad networks require between 10,000 and 1 million page impressions per month (so they have enough inventory to sell). Be certain to ask about exclusive or non-exclusive representation. Exclusive may get you more money, but less inventory gets sold; non-exclusive may not make you as much money, but you can use another ad network to fill in any unsold ad spaces.

The difference between an ad network and an ad exchange is that ad networks aggregate ad inventory from publishers and resell it to advertisers whereas in contrast, an ad exchange is a marketplace where publishers and advertisers can find and execute advertising transactions, similar to what happens on a stock exchange.

MOMent PLease

November 10, 2012

The name given to a method by which your online personal data is hacked and exposed. Because some Wi-Fi networks are unsecure, "sidejacking" works like this: When you login to a secure Web site or browse the Web on an unsecured Wi-Fi network, the fact is everything from the contents of your e-mail to who your friends and acquaintances are, could be easily exposed by hackers.

From a technical point of view, this method by which data could become exposed is nothing new, but it is simpler than most "man-in-the-middle" attacks. For example, many Web services (including Gmail, BlogSpot, Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, and Google Adsense) use cookies to identify session information after the user has already logged in. Using a basic packet sniffer over a Wi-Fi network and a proxy server to pass the information through, a determined hacker can easily "sidejack" the session information as his own by stealing session IDs straight out of the Wi-Fi signal. He could then use that session ID to represent himself as the original user which would allow him to do things like make blog posts, unfriend all of your Facebook friends, and read or send e-mails.

Even though some sites, such as Gmail, offer secure, SSL-based login pages, things aren't as secure after you login. Unlike many bank Web sites that offer a secure browsing experience for the entire duration of the session, most sites dump the user right back out into unsecured territory after logging in, thus exposing their personal data to anyone who wants to get at it.

The solution is to stick to secured Wi-Fi networks that you know and trust (such as your home network that would not have any strangers on it running packet sniffers). But when you do need to use public access points, avoid accessing Web pages that might transmit personal information. For those of you who want to be extremely careful, you should never use a Wi-Fi hotspot unless you are using VPN (virtual private networking) or SSL (secure sockets layer) to access your accounts.

Husband in room

November 11, 2012

A person who just has to have the latest in high-tech gadgets. Similar to upgrade fever, only this term implies a fetish for hardware.

Parents Are Watching

November 12, 2012

Talk To You A While From Now

The distinctive pattern of unsightly creases and wrinkles caused by spending hours with a bent neck, looking down at one’s smart phone. For example, Ryan Seacrest is terrified of contracting "BlackBerry neck," says the National Enquirer. The American Idol host is on his BlackBerry all day, and a source says he 'keeps showing everybody his neck and asking if they can see anything.' Now he’s trying to train himself to text without bending.”

Historical perspective: Is your cell phone making making your face sag? Yes. Your smartphone plus gravity equals drooping jowls and double chins. Our growing reliance on smartphones and laptops is elongating our faces into jowly, sagging messes, according to cosmetic surgeons and other beauty pundits. They've even come up with a suitably distressing name for this phenomenon: "Smartphone face." Coined by British cosmetic surgeon Dr. Mervyn Patterson, the term describes a combination of sagging jowls, double chins, and "marionette lines," those vertical creases that run from the corners of the mouth towards the chin. As Patterson explains to the London Evening Standard, "If you sit for hours with your head bent slightly forward, staring at your iPhone or laptop screen, you may shorten the neck muscles and increase the gravitational pull on the jowl area, leading to a drooping jawline." The name also works on another level; face sag becomes especially noticeable when you take photos of yourself or video-chat on your portable device.

What to do? Options include a range of cosmetic "chinterventions," says the Evening Standard's Leah Hardy. While a chin implant will typically set you back thousands of dollars, you can also firm up your jawline with less-invasive techniques such as injections of chin-sculpting filler or special Botox treatments ( both hundreds of dollars), skin-tightening radiofrequency waves or liposuction/laser facelifts (both thousands of dollars). If you want to save a wad of cash, how about keeping your chin up, or go offline more often.

November 13, 2012

Fear, Uncertainty, and Disinformation

Slang for a venture capitalist, it is derived from the term American soldiers used for the Viet Cong (VC) during the Vietnam War.

November 14, 2012

Any picture you see on a Web page is a bitmap. Bitmaps come in many file formats, such as GIF, JPG, TIF, BMP, PCT, PCX, and DIB (Device Independent Bitmap). They can be read and edited by paint programs and image editors such as Photoshop or Paint Shop Pro. As its name suggests, a bitmap is a map of dots or pixels. If you zoom in or try to scale up a bitmap, it will look blocky.

Exciting

November 15, 2012

Good Game -or- Gotta Go -or- Giggling

An acronym that describes business-to-government relationships. With the government being the largest employer in the U.S., B2G is expected to become big business.

November 16, 2012

Sick Of Me Yet

Coined by author and marketer Seth Godin, who also coined the term permission marketing, an ideavirus is the concept that ideas are the new currency of business. The notion is to come up with a new idea and then spread it through the Internet using e-mail and viral marketing techniques. The object is to get people to embrace the idea and support it.

November 17, 2012

A peripheral device that digitizes artwork or photographs and stores the images as files that you can use with text in a word processing or page layout program. A scanner is how you get a hard copy image of something onto a computer screen.

But You Knew That

November 18, 2012

Almost Good Bridge

Used primarily within the context of social media, "listening" is the study of naturally occurring conversations, behaviors, and signals that may or may not be guided, which brings the voice of people's lives into the brand.

This means that when a business "listens" they are studying people's authentic, unfiltered thoughts, feelings and emotions that take place through interactions with brands or companies in an open, noncoercive manner (as opposed to market research).

In other words, it is observing what people do, such as online shopping or using brands as directed by other people, in ways that focus naturally occurring conversations on agreed-upon topics that take their own direction.

Listening solutions fit into five groups: search, media monitoring, text analytics, private communities, and full-service listening platform vendors.

November 19, 2012

I Gotta Go Pee

A managed services provider (MSP), is typically an information technology (IT) services provider, who manages and assumes responsibility for providing a defined set of services to their clients either proactively or as they (and not the client) determine that the services are needed. Most MSPs bill an upfront setup or transition and an ongoing flat or near-fixed monthly fee, which benefits their clients by providing them with predictable IT support costs and around the clock reliability.

November 20, 2012

Also Known As

The "game" one has to play to quickly close the interstitial ads and other windows that pop-up on some commercial Web pages (especially porn sites). These pages will sometimes generate new windows every time you close a previous one, creating a situation similar to the action in the popular arcade game "Whack-a-Mole."

November 21, 2012

A play on words, "tweeting" refers to telling a global community of friends and strangers what you are doing at the present moment. It comes from the original meaning of uttering a succession of small sounds (like a bird) or to chatter rapidly about of trivial matters.

In the online world, use of the term tweeting (or "twittering") started on the messaging service and social networking website "twitter.com." Twitter is a service that lets subscribers send quick notes (limited to 140 characters, or about 20 words) to the cell phones and Web sites of people who have decided to follow them. The actual note, or post is referred to as a "tweet."

While many people find it unlikely that anyone should care about the nano-activities of someone's life, this technology has far-reaching applications including automated notifications. People are now using twitter as a business application to drive traffic to their websites because you can include links within your short updates. Many bloggers now use twitter as a way to spread their new posts. In these instances, the emphasis is on link sharing as opposed to status updates. The best way to implement this is to infuse your messages with honest updates, and only every third or every fourth update include a promotional type link (so as to not annoy your followers).

To see more Twitter terms, click on the twitterverse link below!

For more information on how to "twitter your home" using automated notifications, click on the "more info" button below!

The Truth Is Out There

November 22, 2012

I Beg To Differ

A consumer electronics device that serves as a gateway between a television and the Internet (over a telephone line or a cable connection). In iTV networks, the STB receives encoded (and compressed) digital signals from the network and decodes (and decompresses) the signals, converting them into analog signals that are displayed on a TV. The STB also receives commands from the user (via a remote control) and transmits the commands back to the television network.

November 23, 2012

Believe it or not, there was a time when Internet investment money went to the person who could tell the best tale. The word "story" was actually replacing the term "business plan" (as if numerical reality were being supplanted by art). Here's one example, "The investor who led the mezzanine round said that the CEO's ability to pitch himself and his company was mission critical, and since the suit could tell a good story, the investor wasn't concerned about getting the next round of financing."

Missing In Action

November 24, 2012

Going To Read Mail

To ruin a potential business deal or arrangement despite all favorable odds. For example, "They are a liberal company, so don't queer the deal by letting them know our conservative tactics."

November 25, 2012

A play on "sticker shock," it refers to the numbing feeling investors get as they watch the Dow Jones or Nasdaq averages plummet.

Miss You So Much

November 26, 2012

Cross Post

The unauthorized copying of software. Most programs are licensed for use at just one computer or by only one user at any time. By buying software, you become a licensed user and are allowed to make copies of the program for backup purposes; but you are not the owner of the software, and it is against the law to give copies to friends or colleagues. Software piracy is almost impossible to stop, even though software companies are launching more and more lawsuits against major infringers. Most software now requires some sort of registration, but that really doesn't thwart would-be pirates.

Shareware takes a different approach to software piracy by acknowledging the futility of trying to stop people from copying software and relying on the honesty system instead. Shareware publishers encourage users to give copies of programs to friends and colleagues but ask everyone who uses a program on a regular basis to pay a fee directly to the program's author. Commercial programs that are made available to the public illegally are often called warez.

November 27, 2012

A company that uses Internet technology and a Web presence in order to further its business initiatives. Some netcentric companies create Internet technology for other companies. Andy Grove, chairman of Intel, is quoted as saying, "In the future, all companies will be Internet companies."

For links to hundreds of netcentric companies, click here or on the "more info" button below!

Does Not Compute

November 28, 2012

Describes a software program that prompts a computer-generated voice to recite the words in a computer file.

Good Sense Of Humor

November 29, 2012

A nickname for the Internet, the most revolutionary communications medium to date.

Excuse Me

November 30, 2012

High-capacity telecommunications networks that use optical technologies and components to provide routing, grooming, and restoration. Optical networks use beams of light versus electrons to carry data. During the conversion process Optoelectronic switches are used to convert light signals received into electronic form, examine their network addressing, and then convert them back to optical signals.

This process, although reliable, still remains somewhat slow. More modern devices, called photonic switches, eliminate the conversion step, making them much faster.

Read Your Screen