Glossary: New Media

safe area

Portion of a video image that will appear without distortion on most TV displays, regardless of their resolution or aspect ratio. Closed captioning, text blocks and interactive on-screen button overlays should always be programmed to appear in the safe area.

sample rate

The number of samples used every second when storing sound data. High sample rates produce terrific sounding audio, but create very large files that expend a lot of bandwidth when delivered online. Audio encoded with lower sample rates is technically easier to stream, but may not sound as smooth and precise.

scalability

The adaptability built into a company’s hardware and software which should be sufficient to handle business growth and traffic spikes while maintaining fast and reliable web and database services.

scanability

Refers to effective use of graphic positioning, brief and relevant copy, font size, white space and other coding choices that let visitors absorb content without having to work too hard. A highly scanable page lets visitors take in a page’s general meaning upon first glance, and easily process the important content as they continue.

screen characteristics

Qualities of the actual display device, such as pixel count and color capacity, that can impact display ad design. Examples include character limitations for mobile phone text messaging and for banner ads.

script

A type of mini-program file that lists commands to run server side to generate dynamic content, or to run locally from within a visitor’s web browser to pop up web forms, rotate display ads, present login windows for user authentication, etc.

SDTV

Short for Standard Definition Television, a set of technical specifications that has governed American TV broadcasting for over 60 years. Currently in the early stages of being phased out by High Definition Television, which provides a much clearer picture and multi-channel surround sound.

search bot

Automated search engine program that attempts to periodically visit and index most every page on the web in order to return relevant and accurate search results. Also known as a crawler or spider.

search engine

Information service grounded in a vast hardware infrastructure that automatically visits all the web pages it can find. It does this to index web content for the queries that visitors enter into search forms. Its chief roles are to rank pages that seem relevant to the visitor’s information request, and to present those results in a hyperlinked format so the visitor can quickly visit sites whose descriptions seem promising.

search engine advertising

Campaign model where advertisers pay search engines to display hyperlinked text ads when visitors type specific keywords in the query field. The pricing model is pay per click, and the charge per click can add up fast. However, the clicks produce well-qualified leads since the visitor’s querying keywords indicate a strong and active interest in a particular topic or product.

search engine optimization

Creating and coding web pages with an eye toward ensuring that search engines confer high relevancy rankings and position the pages highly in their results pages. Effective use of keywords is critical, as is acquiring legitimate inbound links.

search engine results page

The web page that displays the results of a search engine query. Most SERPs also incorporate keyword-based ads.

search engine submission

The process of supplying search engine sites with the URLs for new sites and new pages. This helps the spiders to locate and index those pages without the aid of inbound links.

secure server

Web server that enforces data encryption when sending and receiving personally identifying information and /or financial details needed to complete a purchase. Mandatory for e-commerce sites that must reassure consumers that identities and credit cards cannot be compromised.

secure sockets layer

A security standard for encrypting personal information—such as credit card numbers—employed by the great majority of e-commerce sites. Pages secured by SSL will append an “s” after the http file type in a URL (i.e., https://www.amazon.com/etc.).

seeding

Risky practice of trying to increase relevancy rankings by cramming keywords into every bit of web page code possible—including the use of hidden text, meta tags, unrelated but popular keywords, and competitors’ brand names as keywords.

SEO

See Search Engine Optimization.

SERP

See Search Engine Results Page.

server side

Describes computer transactions that run on a host computer, such as the coding and creation of dynamic web pages that the server quickly sends to a visitor’s browser.

server side include

HTML code that web servers must execute before sending back a web page to the browser that requested it. Normally used to inject dynamic content, query generated content and site wide stylistic elements.

session

Visitor activity on a single site during an uninterrupted period of time. Alternatively, visitor activity across several sites during an uninterrupted period of browsing.

session cookie

Small transactional information files that websites load directly into temporary (RAM) memory, that vanish when a browsing session concludes.

set top box

A consumer electronic device that translates incoming signals from TV programming providers for display on subscribers’ TV sets. Named for their owners’ tendency to set these boxes atop their TV sets, STBs provide the interface to access interactive applications and all available content—including video-on-demand and pay-per-view.

shopping cart

A virtual cart where consumers place merchandise they plan to purchase at online shopping sites. Shopping carts allow visitors to continue to browse and pick up items without losing their place on large e-tail sites.

short message service

Protocol that enables text messaging on cell phones and other mobile communications devices. The “short” refers to maximum message length: 160 characters.

SHTML

File extension for web pages that feature server side includes, HTML code that web servers execute before sending back pages to requesting browsers.

site testing

In its simplest form, ensuring that website content correctly loads in a user’s browser and that hyperlinks reach intended destinations. In its most advanced form, usability testing is the formal study of actual average users who attempt to complete assigned tasks on a website. Research specialists record and analyze their behaviors to identify elements that need to be modified.

skyscraper

A tall and thin online display ad unit typically positioned in a web page’s margin. Recommended size guidelines are 120 or 160 pixels wide by 600 pixels tall.

slotting fee

In an online environment, a fee that advertisers pay to ensure preferential ad placement within networks and premium positioning within pages.

SMPP

Short Message Peer-to-peer Protocol is a communications standard for exchanging brief text messages on mobile devices.

SMS

See Short Message Service.

social bookmarking

Practice of sharing a collection of favorite internet resources, or bookmarks, with a virtual community. Social bookmarking repositories like del.icio.us and spurl.net allow users to tag their saved favorites with keywords relevant to their content. This allows other site users to conduct keyword searches of everyone’s saved bookmarks, returning only sites that like-minded users have found sufficiently interesting to save, tag and share.

social networking

An online phenomenon wherein people join virtual communities and invite like-minded friends to join also. Once the friends invite their friends—whose friends invite more friends—members start to communicate with people they otherwise would never have met. Social networks typically define themselves by topical interest areas such as music, or by actual communities such as students who attend a certain high school or college. Blogs, web forums and media sharing portals are all beneficiaries of the social networking craze.

spam

Slang term used to describe comically or disturbingly untargeted bulk email marketing messages that arrive unsolicited in great numbers. Coined “spam” in reference to a Monty Python skit in which a lineup of Vikings melodramatically and repeatedly sing the word “spam” until someone nearby grows exasperated and screams at them to “shut up!”

spambot

Automated search program designed to identify any valid email address that appears on a web page. The robots copy these addresses to a database, typically used to send spam.

spamdexing

Essentially, spam for search engine indexes. Spamdexing refers to any tactic a webmaster employs to trick search engines into undeservedly elevating relevancy rankings. This ranges from stuffing a web page’s source code with hidden text keywords that users can’t see, to filling meta tags with extremely popular keywords (NFL, recipe, Britney Spears) that have nothing whatsoever to do with page content.

spawning

Online marketing tactic employed by unsavory content sites that deploy pop-under windows so fast and so often that visitors can’t exit the website without restarting the computer.

spider

Automated search engine program that seeks to periodically visit and index each page on the web in order to return comprehensively accurate search results. Also known as a crawler or search bot.

SPIM

Unsolicited and usually unwanted marketing messages sent directly to chat program windows. In short, spam for Instant Messaging clients.

splash page

Introductory website entry page, often enhanced by fast moving Flash animations, that viewers view or dismiss before proceeding to the site’s static home page. Alternatively refers to a landing page—the direct destination of click-through ad links.

splog

Short for spam blog, a splog features randomly generated nonsensical content created to populate sham blog sites with keywords, which in turn can attract ad impressions. Splogs that list links exist chiefly to boost a partner site’s inbound links count and page rank.

sponsorship

An understated form of awareness marketing in which a company helps fund radio, web or television content. To acknowledge this funding, the website, radio show or TV program identifies the sponsor in one or two lines of copy. Companies that employ this strategy believe that people who are friendly to the sponsored content will also become friendly toward the sponsor.

spyware

Surreptitiously installed software that gathers behavioral information about the infected computer’s owner, then uses it to target ad content to the intrusive advertising mechanisms it enabled (hijacked home pages and endless streams of pop-up ads).

squatting

Mercenary tactic in which a person or company registers a domain name that they have no intention of using, but which they suspect they can later sell at a falsely inflated price to an entrepreneur or its logical owner. Also called cyber squatting.

SSI

See server side includes.

SSL

See secure sockets layer.

static ad placement

STB

See set top box.

stickiness

Web analytic that measures a site’s ability to persuade viewers to visit often and for lengthy stays. Dividing page views by the number of unique visitors is one measure, as is the duration of an average site visit. Advertisers love stickiness.

streaming

Technology that allows for the ongoing transmission of audio and video content. A streaming server divides large media files or live broadcast data into small packets that it feeds continuously to client media players, which in turn reassemble the packets for playback. As the streaming process leaves behind no usable media files on the client’s hard drive, streaming makes it more difficult—though it’s still possible—to copy and distribute copyrighted media content.

submission service

Company that takes on the time-consuming task of submitting new websites to search engines and web directories. Since there are many disreputable players in this space, new sites might be wise to handle this task in-house, or leave it to a turnkey web host.

superstitial

Unicast’s proprietary interstitial ad format that is large in size (two-thirds of the screen) and long in duration (about 20 seconds). Superstitials load completely in the cache before playing, so the animations display smoothly and without interruption.

surround session

Series of online display ads from the same advertiser that rotate for the entirety of a visitor’s time on a single website.

synchronized TV

Interactive TV model that codes websites to display dynamic content that changes in conjunction with TV broadcast events. Websites can post information profiles about characters on screen, conduct instant reality show votes or display statistics relevant to sporting events. For direct response purposes, developers can code microsites to reinforce Infomercial content, complete with “click to order” buttons that trigger a series of the necessary web forms. Also called Two Screen TV.

syndication

A technology for automatically delivering new and updated electronic content to interested parties who subscribe to an RSS or Atom feed. The feed pushes out blog posts, news headlines, photographs and podcasts to a feed reader or email client. Syndicating sites use XML code to customize and configure their feeds. They can issue clickable headlines and summaries designed to entice visits to the website itself, or they can simply send out complete articles, podcasts and more.