Glossary: New Media

e-commerce

Short for Electronic Commerce, this term describes the online selling of goods and services.

e-newsletter

An electronic version of the traditional company or interest group newsletter. Subscribers typically opt-in, and often can choose between an HTML formatted version that displays graphical elements or a plain text version that just includes the words.

e-tailing

A type of e-commerce focused on selling consumer products also available at retail.

effective rate

An email marketing metric that measures the percentage of opened emails that generate a click-through. Same as Click To Open Rate.

electronic marketing

A direct-response marketing and sales methodology that promotes products with electronic media such as email, radio, television and the web.See also: 302 redirect

electronic program guide

Accessed from an interface with a TV provider’s set top box, the interactive EPG provides a comprehensive list of all available programs and a one-click method to preview or record them. Some EPGs utilize banners and margins for advertising, which in time will become behaviorally targeted. Known also as an Interactive Program Guide (IPG).

email

Many online veterans describe electronic mail as “the killer application” of the internet due to its ease of use and nearly instantaneous delivery. By necessity, one entity composes a message, and its recipient chooses to read it or not.

email blast

Sending a single email message to a select target audience. Email blasts can alert a huge customer audience to an upcoming sale, or inform a modest trade association membership of an upcoming seminar.

email marketing

Though saddled with a poor reputation because of spam, email marketing remains an effective e-commerce channel—opt-in programs in particular. Companies can customize messages according to purpose, such as attracting new customers or retaining old ones.

emoticons

Email convention of attempting to convey moods and emotions typographically. The “smiley” is the best-known example. :-)

encoding

The resource-intensive process of compressing or digitizing data files. Popular audio encoding methods create m4a, mp3, ra and .wma files. Common video encoding methods use DivX, QuickTime, Real Media and Windows Media codecs. Most TV providers’ set top boxes use MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 encoding.

encryption

Encoding digital files or streams so the only people who can access them are those who receive an accompanying digital “key.” This is often a behind-the-scenes process. Subscription television providers, for instance, download the key automatically to authorized users via their set top boxes.

enhanced tv

A type of interactive TV enabled by incorporating additional data into a portion of a broadcast signal. To interact with these enhanced features—such as reading textual overlays, or clicking a remote control button to take a survey, play a game or save a long-form commercial—viewers need a set top box that can decode the supplemental embedded data.

entry page

A web page that submits to search engine crawlers a version different from what visitors see—a version enhanced to garner high relevancy rankings. A more benign use of this term defines an entry page as a gateway from which visitors can jump to a variety of related topic links.

EPC

Earnings Per Click measures the average amount of money generated every time a user clicks through on an ad link.

EPG

See Electronic Program Guide.

EPV

Earnings Per Visitor calculates the average gross earnings from each unique visitor that enters an e-commerce website.

ESP

Email Service Provider—the company that provides the storage and bandwidth required for email activity.

essence

The portion of a media file or broadcast signal that includes only the audio and video. The essence does not include the accompanying metadata or enhancements that trigger applications.

ETV

See Enhanced TV.

exclusivity

An advertiser’s right—for which they pay handsomely—to be the sole advertiser on a TV program or web page.

exit exchange

A standard advertising exchange agreement between websites that pop up each other’s exit consoles as visitors leave their websites.

expandable banner

An intrusive but attention grabbing banner ad that balloons to a much larger size after a click or a mouse over.

exposures

A measure of online ad delivery—roughly the appearance of an ad in a web browser, where visitors have opportunity to view it. Also known as Impressions.

extensible markup language

Also known as XML, a programming language that allows for greater customization in how to deliver, interpret, present and format data for online use than does HTML—which features a fixed set of options, attributes and coding tags.

extensible scripting language

A style sheet language that applies templates to XML code. As such, it works much like Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) do to affect HTML code, but with additional options—such as the ability to dictate printing commands. Abbreviated as XSL.

extramercial

A broad skyscraper display ad that fills the blank space in a web page’s right hand column.

eye tracking

A marketing research technique in which cameras record subjects’ eye movements to determine engagement level as people interact with emails, TV programs, websites and more. Eye tracking data helps programmers and designers determine what sorts of elements function most effectively in what sorts of layouts.