Glossary

A product that allows a firm to tap into the complementary products, data, or user base of another product or service.

A cost-per-action program, where program sponsors (e.g., Amazon.com, iTunes) pay referring Web sites a percentage of revenue earned from the referral.

Programming hooks, or guidelines, published by firms that tell other programs how to get a service to perform a task such as send or receive data. For example, Amazon.com provides APIs to let developers write their own applications and Websites that can send the firm orders.

Engineering the posting of positive comments and reviews of a firm’s product and services (or negative ones of a firm’s competitors). Many ratings sites will penalize firms that offer incentives for positive feedback posts.

The idea that many media products are sold in containers (physical products, or atoms) for bits (the ones and zeros that make up a video file, song, or layout of a book). As the Internet offers fast wireless delivery to TVs, music players, book readers, and other devices, the “atoms” of the container aren’t necessary. Physical inventory is eliminated, offering great cost savings.

An online identity expressed by an animated or cartoon figure.

The ability to take advantage of complementary products developed for a prior generation of technology.

Network transmission speeds, typically expressed in some form of bits per second (bps).

A limit, imposed by the Internet service provider (e.g., a cable or telephone company) on the total amount of traffic that a given subscriber can consume (usually per each billing period).

Technologies that measure and analyze human body characteristics for identification or authentication. These might include fingerprint readers, retina scanners, voice and face recognition, and more.

A computer criminal.

A temporary storage space used to speed computing tasks.

Acquiring a domain name that refers to a firm, individual, product, or trademark, with the goal of exploiting it for financial gain. The practice is illegal in many nations, and ICANN has a dispute resolution mechanism that in some circumstances can strip cybersquatters of registered domains.

Internet directory service that allows devices and services to be named and discoverable. The DNS, for example, helps your browser locate the appropriate computers when entering an address like http://finance.google.com.

Application transfer protocol that is used to copy files from one computer to another.

An organization or firm that provides access to the Internet.

A value used to identify a device that is connected to the Internet. IP addresses are usually expressed as four numbers (from 0 to 255), separated by periods.

Software that is free and whose code can be accessed and potentially modified by anyone.

Ability to either handle increasing workloads or to be easily expanded to manage workload increases. In a software context, systems that aren’t scalable often require significant rewrites or the purchase or development of entirely new systems.

A computer program or a collection of programs. It is a precise set of instructions that tells hardware what to do.

A language used to create and manipulate databases.

A term broadly referring to Internet services that foster collaboration and information sharing; characteristics that distinctly set “Web 2.0” efforts apart from the static, transaction-oriented Web sites of “Web 1.0.” The term is often applied to Web sites and Internet services that foster social media or other sorts of peer production.

A firm that provides hardware and services to run the Web sites of others.

Industry practice whereby content (usually a motion picture) is available to a given distribution channel for a specified time period or “window,” usually under a different revenue model (e.g., ticket sale, purchase, license fee).