Glossary: New Media

m-commerce

See Mobile Commerce.

mailing list

Collection of mailing addresses or email addresses to which companies send marketing materials. The CAN-SPAM law governs the use of email lists for advertising purposes.

malware

Malicious software—viruses, worms, spyware and such—that installs itself unbeknownst to a computer’s owner. Such software almost always has an illicit function, such as logging keystrokes to aid identify theft, abetting denial of service attacks or serving illegal or copyrighted files.

marquee

An online advertising and website design ploy that displays scrolling text in a horizontal field or banner. See also: favicon

media meshing

Widespread consumer practice of simultaneously interacting with multiple media providers—most commonly, web surfing while watching TV.

media player

Software program or handheld device capable of playing audio and/or video files. Popular software players include Real Player, QuickTime Player, Winamp and Windows Media Player. Representative hardware devices include the iPod, the iRiver Clix, the T-Mobile sidekick and a growing number of cell phones.

media sharing portal

Website that permits users to easily upload and play back audio and video files. Media sharing portals such as Google Video, MySpace, Yahoo Video and YouTube have encouraged an explosion of consumer-generated media.

meta tag

HTML code that describes page content, identifies keywords and provides general information that does not display when visitors load a web page. Used chiefly by select search engines and web designers.

metadata

Typically defined as data about data. All media and data files include metadata attributes such as the creator, bit rate, compression method, file type, screen resolution, etc.

metafile

A type of file—often graphical—that stores different types of data. In an online context, metafiles include the data required to access streaming media sources.

metasearch

Time saving search of multiple search engine results pages conducted from a single interface.

MI

See Monthly Impressions.

microsite

Narrowly focused web page or page set created to cater to specific audiences or promotions. Microsites can be multi-page product presentations, or landing pages that measure direct response—i.e., widget.com/tv—to indicate that visitors who enter that page directly are likely responding to a radio campaign.

minesweeping

Moving a mouse across a web page to determine underlying content. Hovering the mouse over icons and hyperlinks can pop up helpful descriptions—or in poorly coded pages can indicate the presence of a hotspot or text link when the mouse pointer changes its shape.

mirror site

Duplicate copy of a popular website hosted on a different domain. Used legitimately to spread out server requests for high demand content, and illegitimately to boost search engine page rank by inflating inbound link counts.

MMA

See Mobile Marketing Association.

MMS

See Multimedia Messaging Service.

mobile commerce

Marketing transactions—whether advertising or direct sales—that occur on mobile communication devices such as cell phones and PDAs. M-commerce is an ideal direct response medium since the ad channel and response medium are one and the same (i.e., a mobile phone).

mobile marketing

Push and pull marketing efforts that utilize wireless messaging technologies—from sending text and audio messages (push), to encouraging TV viewers to use cell phones to cast votes and enter sweepstakes (pull).

mobile marketing association

The Mobile Marketing Association is a trade organization dedicated to the spread of mobile marketing and the wireless technologies that support it. For complete details, visit mmaglobal.com.

mobisode

Video content edited and encoded to play on a wireless phone or PDA. A mobile episode is typically short in duration—often an abridged version of movies or TV shows that function as promotional trailers.

moblog

Blogs that use wireless devices such as camera phones to create and post image-laden content. Travelogues and nature shoots are popular mobile blog formats.

monthly impressions

Online advertising metric that describes the number of times an ad appears in web browsers over one month’s time.

monthly rental rate

Ad pricing model that quotes a set rate for a specified number of impressions to be delivered to web browsers over one month’s time.

mosaic

In TV parlance, a layout that simultaneously shows several video images. Interactive TV applications use mosaics of thumbnailed videos to provide clickable channel links.

mouse trap

HTML code or script string that prevents visitors from cleanly exiting websites they wish to leave. Common ploys include disabling the back button or redirecting “back” commands to an alternative page on the site. Also called a trap door.

mouseover

The act of hovering a mouse pointer over some portion of a web page or computer application interface. Many online ad units employ scripts to increase in size or spawn new content windows when moused over.

MP3

Technically, an acronym for MPEG -1 or -2 audio layer 3, whose compression algorithm removes redundant or superfluous data from a sound file. To the average technology user, a small sound file that you can download, store and play on all manner of devices and media.

MPEG

A compression algorithm used to compress and encode video data for efficient transmission online, through a video provider’s set top box, or to an HDTV tuner. MPEG is short for Moving Pictures Experts Group, the technical alliance that defined the protocol’s standards.

MPEG-4

The most efficient variant of the MPEG standard. MPEG-4 compression produces the smallest-sized high quality video files, affording subscription TV providers a technical means to increase the number of channels they can offer without also increasing bandwidth.

MPEG–2

The most popular compression technology currently in use to encode audio, data, metadata and video signals for digital cable, DVDs and satellite TV.

MRR

See Monthly Rental Rate.

multi camera angle

An online and interactive television application that allows individual users to choose from which of a number of cameras they can view a webcast or broadcast event.

multicast

Media dissemination strategy that transmits a source file only once, but which allows multiple end users to connect simultaneously and initiate data access (such as hundreds of viewers linking to a website to view a noontime business seminar).

multichannel

Marketing strategy that leverages several communications nodes—magazines, television, mobile messaging and the internet, for instance. In an audio context, multichannel refers to sound systems that send out a number of integrated sound signals (usually six to seven) to a set of strategically placed speakers.

multimedia

Intellectual content that employs more than one type of media. Most commonly used to describe sound and video files that play on personal computers.

multimedia messaging service

Data protocol that enables wireless devices like phones and PDAs to transmit audio, images and video, in addition to basic text.