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Caching (pronounced CASH-ing) is a technique computers use to save memory by storing frequently accessed files. Similarly, Web browsers have caches that keep recently downloaded Web pages handy, often as a list of links on the browser's toolbar. Browser caches are typically kept on your local drive, and you can usually adjust the amount of memory or disk space allotted for the cache. The benefit of Web caches is that you can access a cached page much more quickly than if you downloaded it from a distant server.

Call to Action

Have you ever seen an advertisement that implored you to "Call now!"? Of course you have. Call to action is a term for the copy in an ad that implores the viewer to do something specific in response to the advertisement. "Click here" and its variants are the most popular calls to action in online advertising.

Clickthrough

Clickthrough is the rate at which viewers actually click on ad banners and go to the advertiser's site - whether to sign up for something, to make a purchase, or just to find out more. It generally ranges from 1 to 3 percent industry-wide, a calculation arrived at by dividing the gross number of clicks by the gross number of advertising impressions served for a given campaign.

Creative

Advertising people are funny. They call magazines "books," television "broadcast," and advertisements "creative." While the idea of calling ads "creative" may vary from ludicrously hopeful to woefully inadequate, when someone from the advertising world tells you they've been doing some great creative lately, what they really mean is "ads."

Demographics

Demographics are the DNA of marketing: age, sex, income, profession, marital status, location, and so on. Advertisers rely on demographics to help decide which sites are most likely to help them reach their specific audience. Knowing your audience demographic not only helps you sell ads, it also lets you know who your users are and what they want. To figure out your own site's demographics ask www.osynergyc.com

Direct Response

On the Web, direct response usually refers to a clickthrough on an ad banner. Many advertisers will audit the effectiveness of a campaign based on the number or percentage of direct responses. While this can lead to the hard-bargain, cost-per-click deals that almost entirely ignore the branding value of Web advertising, evaluating response is often the best way to an honest audit of the product, advertising message, and ad placement.

Embedded Media

These are the types of media you can include in an HTML page, such as RealAudio files or GIF animations. But like a fruitcake embedded with mysterious kernels of green gelatin, embedded media often made early Web browsers choke. Later versions of browsers, however, are more sophisticated and contend with non-ASCII information with the help of MIME types. Defined in 1992 by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), multipurpose Internet mail extensions, or MIME types, are a specification for formatting non-ASCII messages so that they can be sent over the Internet. When a browser comes across a file in an HTML document with a MIME extension (like .gif), the browser knows to display that file as an image. Many email clients also support MIME, enabling them to send and receive embedded media via the Internet mail system.

Eyeballs

The term "eyeballs" is a quaint reference to the number of people who see, or "lay their eyes on," a certain advertisement. When buying radio time, marketers refer to "ears" instead of "eyeballs."

Frequency

Frequency is the number of times a person sees your message. Many advertising theorists note a marked decrease in direct response to online advertisements after three impressions per user, but no one's done a thorough audit of how frequency impacts brand awareness. Of course, this is extremely measurable online, so we can look forward to such data in the future. An advertiser trying to gain quick awareness will often specify that frequency be upped to enormous levels. Ever hear the same radio ad five times a day for a week? That's high frequency.

Grayscale

A grayscale image uses only shades of gray to represent an image. Black-and-white photographs can use a virtually unlimited number of shades of gray, but most computers can display only 16 or 256. To grayscale is to convert a continuous-tone image, like a black-and-white photograph, to an image made up of pixels. Grayscaling is different from dithering, which uses either black or white pixels next to one another to simulate shades of gray. In grayscaling, each individual pixel can be a different shade of gray.

Hits

If anyone who isn't a network engineer mentions "hits" to you, they're probably trying to pull the cyberwool over your eyes. Hits are the individual requests a server answers in order to render a single Web page completely. The page document itself, the various images on the page, any other media files embedded there - each of these items represents a separate hit. In other words, the more GIFs used in a page, the higher the hit count - so while hits may be a good indication of poor page design, they won't tell you much about traffic. Unique visitors have to do with documented visitors to your web site.

HTTP

The conversation between browsers and servers takes place according to the hypertext transfer protocol, or HTTP. Written by Tim Berners-Lee, it was first implemented on the Web in 1991 as HTTP 0.9. Currently, Web browsers and servers support version 1.1 of HTTP. It supports persistent connections, meaning that once a browser connects to a Web server, it can receive multiple files through the same connection. The next version, known as HTTP-NG, or hypertext transfer protocol - next generation - which we hope won't be followed by HTTP Voyager - will improve upon the basic HTTP architecture by using modularity and layering.

Image Maps

This is an image that has several links geographically mapped onto it. For example, an image map of a photograph of the Beatles might enable you to click on Ringo and receive a page describing his drumming abilities. Click on George, and receive a file about how Eric Clapton stole Patti Boyd. One thing to remember about image maps is that they are a purely visual form of navigation, so if your visitor isn't loading the images, they'll never know where to click. For this reason, you should always include text links under the images as an alternative way to navigate. 

Impressions

"Impression" is industry parlance for an actual ad viewed. For example, there are three ads on this page, so you've just accounted for three impressions. Why thank you! Of course, it's next to impossible to know if someone actually sees a given advertisement on the Web. After all, a user might not scroll down far enough to see the ad, could be surfing with images turned off, or might press Stop before the ad is fully loaded into the browser window. This can make impression-counting on the Web a thorny endeavor, but then the same goes for other media as well (who knows whether people are actually watching the commercial or off in the kitchen getting another beer?). Short of guessing, you're probably better off slaughtering a goat and examining its entrails. 

ISP

Short for Internet service provider, an ISP owns and operates all of the equipment (telephony, digital cable, servers, etc.) that allow you to connect to the Internet from your home or office. Most ISPs sell access to their services for a small monthly fee, which you can access by "calling in" or "connecting to" your ISP's computer network. Examples of large ISPs in the United States are Earthlink, America Online and NetZero. 

Link

A link is a bit of highlighted text on a Web page that connects to another Web page or file. Clicking the link sends your browser in search of the address attached to the text. That address can refer to another place on the same page, another page within the same site, or just about anywhere on the Internet.

Meta Information

Meta information means "information about information." In HTML, meta tags describe the content of the document in which they're written. Meta tags have two possible attributes: <META HTTP-EQUIV="name" CONTENT="content"> and <META NAME="name" CONTENT="content">. Meta tags with an HTTP-EQUIV attribute are analogous to HTTP headers that can control the action of browsers. Meta tags with a NAME attribute are used primarily by indexing and searching tools. These tools can gather meta information in order to sort and classify Web pages. One way to help your document show up more frequently in search engines and directories is to use the META NAME attribute to set keywords that will pull up your site when someone does a search for those words. 

Modulated Templates

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Mozilla

Mozilla is an open-source Web browser that is based on an early version of Netscape Communicator 5.0. Like other open-source projects, the development is coordinated through discussion forums. Releases are periodically updated. Mozilla was first released in March, 1998. 

MPEG

MPEG, for Moving Picture Experts Group, refers to a group of audio/video compression standards used to create videos comparable to VCR quality. The MPEG-1 standard yields a video resolution of 352-by-240 at 30 frames per second, while MPEG-2 offers resolutions of 720x480 and 1280x720 at 60 fps, with full CD-quality audio. To view an MPEG video, you need to download (shareware or commercial) client software that plays it. The MPEG group works within the International Organization for Standardization and periodically improves and updates the compression standards. 

Multimedia

Before the personal computer boom, the word multimedia had a much simpler connotation - paper, glass, and acrylic on canvas was (and is) multimedia. Today, the definition has expanded to include using a computer to present and combine text, graphics, video, animation, and sound. The birth of the Web led to a great (perceived) potential for multimedia, because of the ability of networked computers to (someday) deliver this information to all users and to (um, soon) allow everyone to join in the world of multimedia publishing. 

.NET

Though it began as a Web-based programming platform primarily used to develop Web applications, .NET is a flexible platform introduced by Microsoft that allows programs written in different languages to be compiled to run under .NET environments. The .NET platform can be used to develop programs for the Web, desktops, handhelds, telephones or any other device that is Web-enabled. 

Object

An object is a self-contained hunk of JavaScript that includes properties, other objects, and associated functions. The associated functions of an object (typically functions that describe what the object is supposed to do) are known as the object's methods JavaScript terms such as method and object are derived from the world of object-oriented programming.

Open source

In early 1998, Netscape announced that it would release the source code of its next-generation browser as a part of its open source strategy. The source code contains the programming elements that make up the Communicator software application. It is not a compiled program and thus cannot be used by traditional software end-users. Mozilla, as it is called, was released as C++ source code and caused a flutter of excitement in part because of its implementation of the World Wide Web Consortium's standards, eXtensible markup language (XML), and the resource description Framework.

PHP

PHP is an open-source scripting language that is embedded alongside HTML to perform interactive functions, such as accessing database information. PHP is similar to Microsoft’s active server page (ASP) technology, but is used primarily on Linux Web servers (or Windows servers with add-on software). An HTML page that has PHP script usually has a ".php" extension. 

Pixel

The cell is nature's building block, and the pixel is the Web designer's. Pixel is one of those half-baked half-acronyms: PICture ELement. It refers to how monitors divide the display screen into thousands or millions of individual dots. A pixel is one of those dots. An 8-bit color monitor can display 256 pixels, while a 24-bit color monitor can display more than 16 million. If you design a Web graphic on a 24-bit monitor, there's an excellent chance that many of your 16 million pixels won't be seen by visitors to your site. Since the agreed-upon lowest common denominator palette for the Web has 216 colors, you should design your graphics using 8-bit color.

Psychographics

The marketer's version of trust circles and group singing, psychographics refers to the "warm and fuzzy" so-called qualitative data about consumer attitudes: political views, learning patterns, and music tastes all qualify for psychographic segmentation. These more ethereal qualities help advertisers and marketers fill in the gaps around basic demographic characteristics.

Pop-Up

A pop-up window is a small browser window that is activated by a mouseover or double-click of an image or button in an existing browser window. Pop-ups can be outfitted with all or none of the the usual browser "chrome" (location bar, navigations buttons, etc.).

QuickTime

QuickTime is a video and animation system developed by Apple Computer that also supports encoding formats like JPEG and MPEG. The International Standards Organization decided in February 1998 to use QuickTime as the basis for its new MPEG-4 standard.

Relationship Marketing

This vaguely oxymoronic term refers to the process of finding out who your visitors are and what they want, then tailoring your site content to meet those specific needs. Whether you've got a simple homepage or a heavy duty e-commerce site, relationship marketing can help you create the kind of bond with your users that'll keep the competition drooling.

Referral Network

Think of the food court at the mall. Most of the time, mallsters will go there looking for food in general, then decide what to eat after they've checked out the selection. The eaters benefit because they don't have to wander all over the mall looking for lunch, and the feeders benefit from the added exposure. A referral network works in the same way. The Web is perfect for this kind of marketing, since sites with similar audiences can be grouped just by linking them together. Amazon.com has an incredibly successful network of thousands of mini-bookstores. The small bookstores get more customers, and Amazon gets money for the books they sell to the little guys - a perfect symbiotic relationship.

Resolution

The resolution of an image describes how fine the dots are that make up that image. The more dots, the higher the resolution. A 300 dpi (dots per inch) printer is capable of printing 300 dots in a line 1 inch long. This means it can print 90,000 dots per square inch. When displayed on a monitor, the dots are called pixels. A 640-by-480-pixel screen is capable of displaying 640 distinct dots on each of its 480 lines, or about 300,000 pixels.

Reach

Reach is the number of different types of individuals that see an ad or message. Reach also applies to how well-known particular sites or groups of sites are. Web research and reporting companies like RelevantKnowledge issue monthly reports on the 25 sites with the greatest overall reach, as well as more detailed reports on demographic characteristics by site.

*Reference

Targeting is aiming a brand message to a specific audience or audiences, whether very broad (anyone with a TV) or aggressively narrow (female cat-lovers,18-34, in San Francisco). 

Template

The word template comes from a woodworking term meaning a thin sheet of metal with shapes cut out of it as a guide. Similarly, HTML templates are skeletal HTML pages with the main content left out. That way, you can quickly create a series of pages with an identical look or navigational structure but different content. When creating templates, it's always a good idea to use of a lot of comments (explanatory text within <!-- these tags -->) so others will be able to use them without much trouble. 

Top of Mind

Top-of-mind refers to the brands that consumers associate most quickly with certain products. For example, when I say cola, you say ___.

Traffic

Traffic refers to the number of visitors a site receives. Since that's a number that can be tracked in many different ways, site marketers usually choose to put their best stat forward, be it pageviews, visitors, impressions, or hits.

Unique Visitors

Unique visitors have to do with documented visitors to your web site; one or 1000 times a day from the same IP address should be counted as once only that month.

Validation

Validation is a way to make sure that your code is compliant with the current HTML specifications. This means you can check to make sure that you didn't accidentally use proprietary tags that would only work on your particular browser. There are many HTML validation sites on the Web, such as Bobby, which will analyze single Web pages for their accessibility to people with disabilities, Weblint, one of the first validators, and the World Wide Web Consortium's rigorous validator, which provides validation for HTML 4.0. 

Visit

At first glance, a visit seems pretty straightforward: it begins when a visitor comes to a Web site and ends when they leave. But try to measure a visit and things get a little tricky. For example, if a visitor reads an article on your site, follows a related link to another site, then returns to your site afterward, should that count as one visit or two? Or suppose someone comes to your Web page and then starts working on something else, leaving their browser open in the background. If they click back to your site eight hours later, should that be considered a separate visit, or just one mighty long stay? According to the Media Measurement Task Force at the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB), a visit is "a series of page requests by a visitor without 30 minutes of inactivity" - which just goes to show how arbitrary the measurement of a visit can be. www.southernsynergy.com only records unique visitors to your site.

Visitor

Basic Tags

<html></html> Creates an HTML document

<head></head> Sets off the title and other information that isn't displayed on the Web page itself

<body></body> Sets off the visible portion of the document

Header Tags

<title></title> Puts the name of the document in the title bar

Body Attributes

<body bgcolor=?> Sets the background color, using name or hex value

<body text=?> Sets the text color, using name or hex value

<body link=?> Sets the color of links, using name or hex value

<body vlink=?> Sets the color of followed links, using name or hex value

<body alink=?> Sets the color of links on click

Text Tags

<pre></pre> Creates preformatted text

<hl></hl> Creates the largest headline

<h6></h6> Creates the smallest headline

<b></b> Creates bold text

<i></i> Creates italic text

<tt></tt> Creates teletype, or typewriter-style text

<cite></cite> Creates a citation, usually italic

<em></em> Emphasizes a word (with italic or bold)

<strong></strong> Emphasizes a word (with italic or bold)

<font size=?></font> Sets size of font, from 1 to 7)

<font color=?></font> Sets font color, using name or hex value

Links

<a href="URL"></a> Creates a hyperlink

<a href="mailto:EMAIL"></a> Creates a mailto link

<a name="NAME"></a> Creates a target location within a document

<a href="#NAME"></a> Links to that target location from elsewhere in the document

Formatting

<p></p> Creates a new paragraph

<p align=?> Aligns a paragraph to the left, right, or center

<br> Inserts a line break

<blockquote> </blockquote> Indents text from both sides

<dl></dl> Creates a definition list

<dt> Precedes each definition term

<dd> Precedes each definition

<ol></ol> Creates a numbered list

<li></li> Precedes each list item, and adds a number

<ul></ul> Creates a bulleted list

<div align=?> A generic tag used to format large blocks of HTML, also used for stylesheets

Graphical Elements

<img src="name"> Adds an image

<img src="name" align=?> Aligns an image: left, right, center; bottom, top, middle

<img src="name" border=?> Sets size of border around an image

<hr> Inserts a horizontal rule

<hr size=?> Sets size (height) of rule

<hr width=?> Sets width of rule, in percentage or absolute value

<hr noshade> Creates a rule without a shadow

Tables

<table></table> Creates a table

<tr></tr> Sets off each row in a table

<td></td> Sets off each cell in a row

<th></th> Sets off the table header (a normal cell with bold, centered text)

Table Attributes

<table border=#> Sets width of border around table cells

<table cellspacing=#> Sets amount of space between table cells

<table cellpadding=#> Sets amount of space between a cell's border and its contents

<table width=# or %> Sets width of table — in pixels or as a percentage of document width

<tr align=?> or <td align=?> Sets alignment for cell(s) (left, center, or right)

<tr valign=?> or <td valign=?> Sets vertical alignment for cell(s) (top, middle, or bottom)

<td colspan=#> Sets number of columns a cell should span

<td rowspan=#> Sets number of rows a cell should span (default=1)

<td nowrap> Prevents the lines within a cell from being broken to fit

Frames

<frameset></frameset> Replaces the <body> tag in a frames document; can also be nested in other framesets

<frameset rows="value,value"> Defines the rows within a frameset, using number in pixels, or percentage of w idth

<frameset cols="value,value"> Defines the columns within a frameset, using number in pixels, or percentage of width

<frame> Defines a single frame — or region — within a frameset

<noframes></noframes> Defines what will appear on browsers that don't support frames

Frames Attributes

<frame src="URL"> Specifies which HTML document should be displayed

<frame name="name"> Names the frame, or region, so it may be targeted by other frames

<frame marginwidth=#> Defines the left and right margins for the frame; must be equal to or greater than 1

<frame marginheight=#> Defines the top and bottom margins for the frame; must be equal to or greater than 1

<frame scrolling=VALUE> Sets whether the frame has a scrollbar; value may equal "yes," "no," or "auto." The default, as in ordinary documents, is auto.

<frame noresize> Prevents the user from resizing a frame

Forms

For functional forms, you'll have to run a CGI script. The HTML just creates the appearance of a form.

<form></form> Creates all forms

<select multiple name="NAME" size=?></select> Creates a scrolling menu. Size sets the number of menu items visible before you need to scroll.

<option> Sets off each menu item

<select name="NAME"></select> Creates a pulldown menu

<option> Sets off each menu item

<textarea name="NAME" cols=40 rows=8></textarea> Creates a text box area. Columns set the width; rows set the height.

<input type="checkbox" name="NAME"> Creates a checkbox. Text follows tag.

<input type="radio" name="NAME" value="x"> Creates a radio button. Text follows tag

<input type=text name="foo" size=20> Creates a one-line text area. Size sets length, in characters.

<input type="submit" value="NAME"> Creates a Submit button

<input type="image" border=0 name="NAME" src="name.gif"> Creates a Submit button using an image

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