Glossary: New Media

W3C

The World Wide Web Consortium is an international alliance with the stated mission, “To lead the World Wide Web to its full potential by developing protocols and guidelines that ensure long-term growth for the Web.” Its key initiative is to promulgate programming and coding standards that ensure interoperability among the web’s foundational technologies.

walled garden

A browsing, data or programming interface that limits access to a predetermined type of content. This ranges from filtered internet access in homes and schools, to mobile web browsing options, to restricted menus of subscription television channels.

WAP

See Wireless Application Protocol.

WASP

See Wireless Applications Service Provider.

WEB 2.0

Nebulous term that has come to encompass virtually every new or newly popular internet technology or behavior pattern. Though definitions vary, Web 2.0 embraces social networking, democratized publishing, open-source software development and user-generated media.

web forum

A topically focused online message board that usually requires members to register before posting. Most forums maintain searchable archives of previous postings.

web hosting

The provisioning of all data storage and transmission services necessary to run a “live” website. Web hosting companies provide web servers, file storage, download capacity and administrative modules through which site owners can manage and update their sites.

web log

An ongoing online journal that offers insight and commentary about matters both public and personal. Web logs are highly interactive. Many allow readers to post comments on what they read, and almost all feature links to favored content. See also blog—a contraction by which the web log is most commonly known.

web ring

A group of websites that share a common topic as well as an interest in building traffic from visitors who click on a member site’s web ring graphic. These graphical links typically include navigational options to jump to previous and random sites within the ring.

web server

A high capacity and high performance computer—most commonly running the Apache Server or Microsoft Internet Information Server software—optimized to deliver web pages to visitors who request them.

webcasting

Online broadcasts of live or archived multimedia presentations via streaming technologies.

webmaster

The person in charge of designing and maintaining a website.

webmercial

An online version of almost any type of standard TV ad—five- to thirty-second image commercials, two-minute direct response spots or half-hour Infomercials (typically divided into chapters for web presentation). Webmercials have enormous direct response potential since viewers are already interacting with the ordering mechanism—the web—when they see them.

wiki

A collaborative online information resource named for a Hawaiian word meaning “quick”—which is the speed at which participants can edit and update its content. Wikis can be encyclopedic in scope (wikipedia.org) or mission-specific (a marketing team creating a best practices compilation).

Windows Media

Microsoft’s proprietary multimedia file and streaming formats. These include ASF and ASX (streaming), WMA (audio) and WMV (video). All are optimized to play on the Windows Media Player that bundles with every modern version of the Windows operating system.

Windows Media Player

The default audio and video playback program in every Windows operating system. Although the player is optimized for media files encoded by Microsoft codecs, it also plays most standard media files. Notable exceptions are files encoded by Apple or Real algorithms (QuickTime and RealAudio among them).

wireless

Increasingly popular way to transmit data on low-powered radio waves. Wireless technology has enabled widespread mobile phone use and a growing number of internet access networks that use wired radio transmitters to wirelessly distribute the originating wired data signal.

wireless application protocol

Networking protocol for sending data and specially formatted web content—such as news, video and advertising—to mobile phones, PDAs and pagers.

wireless applications service provider

Company or institution that codes applications, provides content and offers network connectivity for mobile communications devices.

WMA

Windows Media Audio is the file format for audio encoded and optimized to play in Windows Media Player.

WML

Wireless Markup Language is a variation of XML that allows content provisioners to create small applications and custom web pages that run and display on the small screens used by mobile phones and PDAs.

WMV

Windows Media Video is the file format for video encoded and optimized to play in Windows Media Player.

WOMMA

The Word of Mouth Marketing Association—a trade association dedicated to the growth of ethical and effective word-of-mouth marketing techniques. For more information, visit womma.com.

word of mouth

Marketing focus that attempts to spread a good word by uniting the credibility of true believers with the reach of communications technology. Average consumers who praise a movie or detergent to other average consumers can in time create positive and influential buzz. Blogs, web forums, social networking sites and other forms of consumer-generated media inexpensively speed the process and expand its reach.