Active Tag
An Active Tag is a type of RFID tag powered by an internal battery that enables the tag's microchip circuitry to transmit a signal to a tag reader. It is a larger, more expensive alternative to passive tags (tags powered by magnetic fields generated by the tag reader), that offers a greater range of communication and a higher data transmission rate. Active tags are currently being used for a variety of tasks, from tracking inventory to automatic automobile toll systems. Their combined use with certain wireless network connections, portable computation and tag readers makes possible new applications. (see RFID tag for more.)
Addressability
This is an interactive television (iTV) term that refers to the ability to create, address and deliver content, advertising and entertainment to people who have asked for it at a time of their choosing. True addressability will change marketing, advertising and selling dramatically. Addressable advertising is the iTV application that has the greatest promise for producing the most significant economic impact. DVR/PVR technology embedded in cable boxes is likely to accelerate addressability in iTV.
ADT (Advanced Digital Television)
This is a catch-all name that includes digital television services, including on-demand, enhanced television services, IPG and addressable advertising technologies.
Advertainment
An entertaining way to serve up advertising on multiple platforms that expands on the 30-second commercial format. This video content utilizes engaging visual techniques, shot by well-known directors, to connect with and entertain the user. The ads usually tell a story and could be compared to short films. BMW Films is a well-known example, as is Ogilvy’s recent Seinfeld and Superman initiative.
Attentive Billboards
Billboards or display screens that use optical recognition techniques to scan people as they gaze at ads and news. They can track where people are looking and extract information about their sex, age, and race, and then adjust the information displayed. Attentive billboards can even look at a person's facial expression to guess whether they are happy or sad.
Biometric Identification
Information technology that identifies individuals for security purposes, using biological traits such as fingerprints, eye scans, face measurement and body chemistry. Some $1.5 billion will be spent in 2004 for biometric identification applications, including law enforcement, banking and travel.
Bluetooth
Bluetooth was initially developed through the collaboration of a number of companies to standardize data synchronization across a wide variety of mobile devices. Through the use of infrared signaling, this short-range, digital wireless networking technology allows personal devices such as a PDA, computer, printer or mobile phone to all exchange data. Bluetooth is capable of a range of approximately 30 feet. For example, a Bluetooth-capable PDA can "talk to" a Bluetooth-enabled mobile phone to access the Internet for e-mail and Web surfing. In addition, the same PDA would be able to send a document to a Bluetooth-capable printer or synchronize (backup) data with a Bluetooth-capable PC or Mac.
Branded Content
This most often refers to either brand-sponsored content or product placement. In the future, this phrase will describe any surrounding or embedded content that has some marketing/product information.
CDMA (Code Division Multiple Access)
This digital, spread spectrum, packet-based access system, currently used in certain cellular phone systems and some wireless networks, enables the break-up and spreading of a digital signal across the small portion of the spectrum. As a spread signal must be decoded by the receiving device, just as it was coded by the sending device, this technology creates a more secure signal, and allows greater amounts data to be transferred.
Click-through rate
When a user clicks their mouse on digital content (banners, rich media etc.), it's refered to as a "clickthrough." If 10% of the people who visit a site click on that ad, then the ad has a "clickthrough rate" of 10%. This is a minor measure of the effectiveness of the ad.
CRM (Customer Relationship Management)
Creating and nurturing financial, structural and emotional bonds between customers and brands, online and offline.
Data Collection
This refers to the process of gathering information from viewers or users about what content is being watched, replayed or fast-forwarded, as well as the duration of each viewing. This data is often used to build a more beneficial relationship with these viewers.
DBS (Direct Broadcast Satellite)
DBS is the main competitor to cable television. Rather than using underground cable lines, TV signals are transmitted by satellite to a dish stationed on the TV viewer's roof. DirecTV and EchoStar are the dominant DBS companies in the US. With technologies such as DBS becoming more prevalent, providing more options to the public, audiences are becoming more fragmented. As a result, advertisers have more options for reaching these increasingly more segmented audiences.
DTV/DiTV
Digital Television (DTV) uses digital television signals, rather than conventional analog methods. Advantages of DTV over analog TV include:
• Superior image resolution (detail) for a given bandwidth
• Smaller bandwidth for a given image resolution
• Compatibility with computers and the Internet
• Interactivity
• Superior audio quality
• Consistency of reception over varying distances
In the US, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has mandated that DTV become the industry standard by 2006 as long as 85% of households in the country have purchased digital sets or set-top converters.
DVR (Digital Video Recorder)
This technology enables digital recording, pausing, rewinding and fast-forwarding of live TV shows. TiVo and ReplayTV are the dominant brand names of DVRs, however, many cable operators are simply building this functionality into their set-top boxes without any brand name attached. DVR also has the capability to store the viewer's preferences, which, when combined with program information, enables more contextual, targeted advertising. Sometimes called PVR (Personal Video Recorder).
Enhanced TV
This refers to a television experience that allows the viewer to interact with a broadcast in real time. For example, viewers might have access to additional content, take part in live surveys, or ask questions.
EPG (Electronic Program Guide)
An EPG is a user-controlled menu that allows viewers to browse and select programs on all channels offered by a digital cable or satellite service (usually 500+ channels). Hitting the "Guide" button on the remote control is the most common way to access EPGs.
EPOC
EPOC is an operating system designed for small, mobile multimedia devices to give them wireless communication capabilities and an architecture for adding application programs. It was developed by Symbian, a joint-venture between Psion and Ericsson, Matsushita, Nokia and Motorola. The name is derived from the company's belief that the world is entering "a new epoch of personal convenience."
Fat Pipe
A fiber-optic cable used on a network for high-speed communications to enable fast transfer of data. It has a wide bandwidth for baseband and broadband high-capacity communications.
GPRS (General Packet Radio Service)
GPRS is a continous connection service for GSM, the cell phone standard for many carriers in the U.S. and most countries. GPRS provides high-speed data services over cellular networks, and requires a GPRS-supported connection. Because of its high speeds of data transfer (56 to 114 Kbps), it is ideal for users wishing to quickly send and receive e-mail or surf the Web from their PDA or mobile phone.
GSM (Global System for Mobile Communication)
GSM, a second-generation digital or "PCS" wireless technology, is often used as a catch-all phrase for a family of technologies that includes GSM, EDGE, and UMTS/WCDMA. Providing high-quality voice and circuit-switched data services over a variety of spectrum bands, it is the current standard for digital cellular phone service in Europe, Japan and Australia. GSM's extensive coverage and innovative Subscriber Identity Module(SIM) card, which allows users to easily switch operators or upgrade to new GPRS devices without the need to re-configure their subscriber data, makes it an attractive technology that is now gaining popularity in the U.S.
(Home) Networks
A network is a group of two or more computers linked together, making it easier to move data from one computer to another. Networks enable multiple users to share hardware, such as printers, and connect to servers or the Internet. A home network makes it easy for members of a single household to share Internet access, whether over a phone line, cable modem, or DSL modem in the home.
i-mode
This packet-based data service for mobile phones was introduced in 1999 by Japan's leader in wireless technology, NTT DoCoMo. i-Mode was the world's first smart phone for Web browsing. The i-Mode wireless data service offers color and video over most phones. Its mobile computing services enable users to do telephone banking, make airline reservations, conduct stock transactions, send and receive e-mail and access the Internet. Operating fees are based on the volume of data transmitted, as opposed to the length of time connected.
IntelliTXTsm
IntelliTXT is a new proprietary technology offered by Vibrant Media. It creates customized, sponsored embedded text links within a Web page, based on occurrences of keywords and phrases appearing in the content that matches corresponding product information. This publisher-side approach allows Web publishers to have controlled access to the rapidly growing on demand market, and gives advertisers the ability to deliver messages in a contextual environment.
IPG (Interactive Programming Guide)
See: EPG (Electronic Program Guide)
ITV (Interactive Television)
See: Enhanced Television (eTV)
Memory Cards
Enhances your PDA or mobile phone with more memory for data, software, pictures, music and games. Memory cards can be used with digital cameras, mobile phones and PDAs to exchange photos, music and other data. Current popular formats include Memory Stick (MS), SecureDigital (SD), CompactFlash (CF-I and CF-II), SmartMedia (SMC), MultiMedia (MMC), and Extreme Digital (xD).
Mesh Network
This is a network in which devices are connected with many redundant interconnections between network nodes. In a true mesh network, every node has a connection to every other node in the network, either directly or by hopping though intermediate nodes. In the near future, computers, televisions and stereos might have the ability to act as components of a mesh network. In a wireless mesh network, each PDA, cellular phone, or other mobile unit can act as a "node" on the network. Such multiple peer-to-peer connections would allow greater network resiliency, more efficient balancing of network traffic, and provide network access to areas where wireless reception isn't possible.
MMS (Multimedia Messaging Service)
MMS is a communications technology developed by 3GPP (Third Generation Partnership Project) that allows users to exchange multimedia communications between capable mobile phones and other devices. An extension to the Short Message Service (SMS) protocol, MMS defines a way to send and receive, almost instantaneously, wireless messages that include photographs, audio and video clips, in addition to text.
Nanotechnology
Nanotechnology, or, as it is sometimes called, molecular manufacturing, is a branch of engineering that deals with the design and manufacture of extremely small electronic circuits and mechanical devices built at the molecular level of matter. The Institute of Nanotechnology in the U.K. expresses it as "science and technology where dimensions and tolerances in the range of 0.1 nanometer (nm) to 100 nm play a critical role."
NFC (Near Field Communication)
Evolving from a combination of contactless identification and networking technologies, Near Field Communication is a wireless connectivity technology that enables convenient short-range communication between electronic devices. It is an open interface platform that allows fast and automatic set-up of wireless networks, providing a virtual connector for existing cellular, Bluetooth and wireless 802.11 devices. For example, NFC could enable a billboard to receive information transmitted from a user's cellphone, and thereby adjust its messaging based on the information culled from the user's smart card. NFC can also enable wireless commerce.
On Demand
An on demand business is an enterprise whose business processes – integrated end-to-end across the company and with key partners, suppliers and customers – can respond with flexibility and speed to any customer demand, market opportunity or external threat.
PCS (Personal Communications Services)
A wireless phone service emphasizing greater mobility and personal service than standard cellular car phone services. PCS supports wireless phone, paging, messaging and data services.
Post Push
Frank Rose used this term in the October 2003 Wired magazine to define the transition to a marketing world whereby communications are no longer "mass" but rather "micro" and are "pulled" by the consumer at a time and place of their choosing.
PVR (Personal Video Recorder)
See: DVR (Digital Video Recorder)
RFID (Radio Frequency Identification)
A method of identifying items using radio devices and microchips embedded into small tags. Whereas bar coded items are typically read once, and require a bar code scanner, an RFID "reader" picks up information stored on the tag, such as a unique serial number or a customer account number. Current applications of RFID include automated highway toll collection, retail item tracking, storage of medical information, and animal tracking. Near Field Communications and RFID enable a cell phone or other mobile device to be used as a reader, opening up numerous potential applications across industries.
Rich Media
This refers to Web content that contains multi-media components, such as audio, video or special effects using Shockwave, Flash or Javascript, to create a richer and more engaging user experience.
Set-Top Boxes
These are the boxes installed by cable and satellite operators in subscribers' homes that transform their signals into television images. The technology employed by a set-top box often determines the level of interactivity enabled.
SMS (Short Message Service)
SMS is system for sending short messages (up to either 160 or 224 characters) between mobile phones using a GSM cellular network. SMS messages do not require that the destination phone be available and will be stored for several days.
SVOD (Subscription Video-on-Demand)
SVOD refers to the packaging of a series of programs that a cable subscriber pays for on a monthly basis. SVOD allows access to all programming anytime, regardless of a channel's program schedule.
Swarming
Swarming describes a phenomenon in which mobile communications are used to draw like-minded people to converge on a specific location from all directions, simultaneously. Manila, Seattle, San Francisco, Senegal and Britain were all sites of nonviolent political swarming.
Telescoping
The linking of content from the linear broadcast pod to pre-loaded long form content, enabling consumers to jump to richer advertising content, while the device pauses the live TV, but continues to record the show from the jump-off point.
3G (Third-Generation-Wireless)
3G is a short term for third-generation wireless, and refers to specific developments in personal and business wireless technology, especially mobile communications. This phase is expected to reach maturity by 2005. The 1G period began in the late 1970s and lasted through the 1980s. These systems featured the first true mobile phone systems that used analog voice signaling, and were little more sophisticated than repeater networks used by amateur radio operators. The 2G phase began in the 1990s, and much of this technology is still in use. The 2G mobile phone features digital voice encoding. Examples include CDMA, TDMA, and GSM. Since its inception, 2G technology has steadily improved, with increased bandwidth, packet routing, and the introduction of multimedia. The present state of mobile wireless communications is often called 2.5G.
Ultimately, 3G is expected to include capabilities and features such as:
• Enhanced multimedia (voice, data, video, and remote control)
• Usability on all popular modes (cellular telephone, e-mail, paging, fax, videoconferencing, and Web browsing)
• Broad bandwidth and high speed (upwards of 2 Mbps)
• Routing flexibility (repeater, satellite, LAN)
• Operation at approximately 2 GHz transmit and receive frequencies
• Roaming capability throughout Europe, Japan, and North America
TiVo
TiVo is a company offering a branded subscription-based interactive television service that lets viewers program and control which television shows they watch, and when. TiVo requires the purchase of a personal digital video receiver and a subscription to TiVo Personal TV service. The service and the receiver are compatible with cable, digital cable, direct broadcast satellite, VCRs or rooftop antennae. The service allows viewers to manipulate programs by pausing, rewinding or instantly replaying a portion of the broadcast, without missing succeeding action.
TiVo Showcase
Also known as advertising showcase, this phrase was coined by TiVo to define a unique area within their programming interface that provides an additional platform for advertisers to showcase their marketing and provides a deeper engagement with consumers with richer advertising content.
Viral Marketing
Any marketing content that propagates itself. For example, when Hotmail users send e-mail, they unwittingly infect the recipient with the tagline at the bottom of the message. Many online guerilla marketing campaigns include viral marketing executions in the hopes that through online word-of-mouth, users will spread the marketer's message themselves.
VOD (Video-on-Demand)
VOD refers to the capability of a cable customer to view a piece of video through a set-top box whenever desired. On-demand programming includes movies, TV shows, music videos, trailers, news segments, or any proprietary video produced by the cable operator or its entertainment affiliates. Unlike Pay Per View, VOD allows the viewer to start the program at his leisure, and stop, start and rewind as many times as desired within a 24-hour period.
VOIP (Voice Over IP)
A category of hardware and software that enables people to use the Internet as the transmission medium for telephone calls. For users who have free or fixed-price Internet access, Internet telephony software essentially provides free telephone calls anywhere in the world. To date, however, Internet telephony does not offer the same quality of telephone service as direct telephone connections.
Walled Garden
An online service that makes it easy and attractive to use information services offered by its partners, but slower and harder to use services offered by outsiders. AOL is a common example of a Walled Garden information provider. Technically, this is accomplished with selective caching, attenuated connections to the Internet-at-large and a new generation of data switches that can selectively delay data enroute to and from non-preferred services.
WAP (Wireless Application Protocol)
WAP is a specification for a set of communication protocols to standardize the way that wireless devices, such as cellular telephones and radio transceivers, can be used for Internet access, including e-mail and the World Wide Web. WAP was conceived by four companies: Ericsson, Motorola, Nokia, and Unwired Planet (now Phone.com).
Webisode
A webisode is a single push technology episode of content viewed online. A webisode can be a preview or promotion of a particular TV show, music video, or other show presented from a Web site using streaming video or other techniques. Some sites are dedicated to presenting webisodes.
WiFi (Wireless Fidelity)
WiFi (Wireless Fidelity) is the popular term for a high-frequency wireless local area network (WLAN). WiFi technology is rapidly gaining acceptance in many companies (and homes) as an alternative to a wired LAN. WiFi operates under the 802.11 standard in the 2.4GHz range, which is also the same frequency as some cordless phones, garage door openers, and walkie-talkies. An 802.11 (WiFi) base station is often attached to a local network, which is then attached to the Internet or corporate network. Unless adequately protected, a WiFi wireless LAN can be susceptible to access from the outside by unauthorized users, some of whom will use the access as a free Internet connection. Companies that have a wireless LAN are urged to add security safeguards. Many airports, hotels, and fast-food facilities now offer public access to a Wi-Fi network; these are known as hotspots. Although many charge a daily or hourly rate for access, some are free.
Wi-Max (Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access)
Wi-Max refers to any broadband wireless access network capable of transmitting network signals covering in excess of 30 miles of linear service area. This is much greater than Wi-Fi's coverage of several thousand square feet.
Wireless Quilts
Recent technical and regulatory events have made it possible for people to share wireless Internet access today at speeds higher than expected for the expensive "3rd Generation" (3G) mobile telephones. Users have to buy a high-speed Internet connection from an existing ("upstream") provider in order to support a ("downstream") wireless community, but it provides users with the power to do things that only the connection provider could do in the past.
Wireless Freenets
Freenet is a community wireless network that uses inexpensive radios and antennas that operate in a license-free band to ensure true freedom of communication over the Internet. It allows anybody in loose-knit communities to access the Internet wirelessly for free.
Sources for this glossary include:
Newton's Telecom Dictionary, 20th edition,
Leo Laporte's 2004 Technology Almanac,
Smart Mobs, whatis.com and numerous other sources.
Newton's Telecom Dictionary, 20th edition,
Leo Laporte's 2004 Technology Almanac,
Smart Mobs, whatis.com and numerous other sources.