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Glossary: Digital Media Terms

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AGA
American Gaming Association. Represents the commercial casino entertainment industry by addressing federal legislative and regulatory issues affecting its members interests, such as federal taxation, regulatory issues, and travel and tourism matters.
AIM
AOL Instant Messenger. Instant messaging service provided by AOL that enables users to chat online in real-time.
ASCAP
The American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers. A membership association of over 240,000 U.S. composers, songwriters, lyricists, and music publishers. ASCAP protects the rights of its members by licensing and distributing royalties for the non-dramatic public performances of their copyrighted works.
Bit Bucket
Where delivered digital items end up that are never received. Also, a mythical place for lost digital items.
BRB
Be right back.
BREW
Binary Runtime Environment for Wireless. Technology solution for wireless delivery and applications developed by Qualcomm.
Captchas
Visually distorted letters and numbers that some websites require users to enter prior to creating a user account or accessing a site. Term is an acronym derived from: Completely Automated Public Turing Test to Tell Computers and Humans Apart, which was coined by computer scientists at Carnegie Mellon.
Click Fraud
The illegal practice of clicking on advertisements (typically banner ads and text links) to increase the payable number of click throughs to the advertiser. Clicks of this kind occur by individuals manually clicking the advertising links or by software programmed to automatically click on advertisements. There are two primary motives for this behaviour: 1) Increase ad revenues of online publishers; or 2)deplete a competitor's advertising budget.
CPA
Cost Per Acquisition. Rate an advertiser is charged for a confirmed sale or lead.
CPC
Cost Per Click. Advertising fee associated with performanced-based campaigns, especially with keyword campaigns on search engines like Google and Yahoo!. Advertisers pay the search company or ad network for clicks only. Prices are typically auction-based.
CPM
Cost Per Thousand. Typically refers to the cost of one thousand impressions. For example, 1,000,000 banner impressions at a $25 CPM rate, would cost $25,000 (1,000 * $25).
CTIA
Cellular Telecommunications & Internet Association. An international organization representing all sectors of wireless communications – cellular, personal communication services and enhanced specialized mobile radio
DDEX
The Digital Data Exchange.
DIY
Do It Yourself
DRM
Digital Rights Management. Technology that manages commercial licenses and usage rights of digital assets, and that helps protect against piracy.
DVR
Digital Video Recorder A DVR is typically a TV set-top box with a computer disk drive that records programs for later viewing (referred to as "time shifting"). TiVo is a well-known DVR brand.
E3
Electronic Entertainment Expo. The largest event for the video games industry, held once a year each May in the US. The event is produced by ESA.
EOM
End of Message. Acronym used in various text-based forms of communication to indicate the end of a given message. Used in: text messaging, instant messaging, e-mail, discussion boards, etc.
ESA
Entertainment Software Association. U.S. association that serves and represents the companies that publish video and computer games for video game consoles, personal computers, and the Internet. ESA members collectively account for more than 90 percent of the $7 billion in entertainment software sold in the U.S. in 2005.
ESRB
Entertainment Software Rating Board. A non-profit, self-regulatory body established in 1994 by ESA. ESRB independently assigns computer and video game content ratings, enforces industry-adopted advertising guidelines and helps ensure responsible online privacy practices for the interactive entertainment software industry.
EULA
End User License Agreement. Contractual agreement between a software publisher and a user. Also see TOS (Terms of Service).
Facebooking
Derivative verb from the popular college and high school website, Facebook.com. Represents various actions associated with using Facebook.com, such as: managing one's profile; searching and viewing the profiles of others; sending messages; adding friends; etc.
Favicon
Favorites Icon. Small icon associated with bookmarks used in web browsers.
FiOS
Stands for Fiber Optic Service and is pronounced "Fye-Ose". FiOS uses fiber optic cables to provide high speed internet access to usersat at amazingly high speeds.
Firefox
A popular open-source web browser.
FYI
For Your Information. Often preceeds a message to indicate that it may be of interest to the receiving party.
Geofiltering
The business practice of restricting access to content by geographic areas. Plays a critical role in the syndication of television content in order to prevent channel conflict and market saturation among local and international TV stations.
GUI
Graphical User Interface.
HMS
Home Media Server
IEMA
The Interactive Entertainment Merchants Association. Non-profit U.S. trade organization that serves the business interests of leading retailers that sell interactive entertainment software (including video and computer games, multimedia entertainment, peripherals and other software).
IMHO
In My Humble Opinion. Often used prior to expressing an opinion in text-based forms of communication, like text messaging and discussion boards.
IRL
In Real Life. Acronym used by members of virtual communities, like Second Life, to distinguish between people and activities in online virtual worlds from those in the real world.
ISP
Internet Service Provider. A company that provides consumers and companies access to the Internet. Earthlink and AOL are two widely used services. ISP's offer services through the following types of connections: dial-up phone lines; DSL phone lines; cable connections; and cellular connections.
Lurker
An online user that regulary reads the online posts of others, while never posting his or her own, thus remaining unknown to the online community.
Mashup
A mashup is the end result of combining content from more than one source to create a new form of content or application. Music and video mashups are two prevalent examples of this genre.
MMORPG
Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game
MPAA
Motion Picture Association of America
MVNO
Mobile Virtual Network Operator. An MVNO is a mobile service operator that does not own its own wireless spectrum and typically does not have its own network infrastructure. Instead, MVNO's partner with traditional mobile operators, like Sprint and Verizon, to buy minutes of use (MOU) for sale to their own customers, while providing value-added services and custom content. Example MVNO's include: Mobile ESPN, Virgin Mobile, Amp'd Mobile, and Helio.
NAB
National Association of Broadcasters. A full-service trade association which represents the interests of free, over-the-air radio and television broadcasters.
NATPE
The National Association of Television Program Executives. A global, non-profit organization dedicated to the creation, development and distribution of televised programming in all forms across all mature and emerging media platforms.
NSFW
Not safe for work. Acronym used to label links to sites that may contain inappropriate content for corporate environments, such as pornography.
P2P
Peer to Peer
Place-Shifting
Viewing content remotely, or from a non-standard location. An example of this is SlingMedia's TV set-top box that enables users to view their home TV programming (both live and content on a DVR) remotely through an Internet connection.
PMP
Personal Media Player. Examples include: iPod, PSP, MP3 players, etc.
PVR
Stands for "Personal Video Recorder".
RIAA
Recording Industry Association of America. The trade group that represents the U.S. recording industry. RIAA members create, manufacture and/or distribute approximately 90%% of all legitimate sound recordings produced and sold in the United States.
Social Networking
Online sites and communities that have user-centric content and interactive features, such as personal blogs, discussion boards, chat rooms, etc. MySpace is the prototypical example of a social networking site.
Super-Distribution
A fancy word for spreading messages or products through networks, either networks of friends or businesses. The idea is that an advertising message is more credible if it comes from someone you trust within your network.
Time-Shifting
The practice of experiencing recorded content, such as viewing television progams on a DVR.
TOS
Terms of Service. Contractual agreement between a publisher of a digital product or service and a user - in essence what users can and cannot legally do from the perspective of the publisher.
UGC
User Generated Content. Content produced and submitted by members of an online community. Typical types of user-created content include: blog posts; articles; reviews; comments; videos; podcasts; images; etc. Mashups and Machinima are other popular forms of user generated content.
VoIP
Voice Over Internet Protocol. A communications technology that enables voice conversations over IP networks, such as the Internet, using packets. Examples of commercial VoIP services include: Vonage, Lingo, and Skype.
WiMax
WiMax is a wireless communications technology with a signal strength over several miles that can provide wireless access to the Internet. It is a long-range version of the popular short-range wireless Internet technology, Wi-Fi. Intel is a prominent supporter of the technology.