Ftrain, by Paul Ford

Some Useful-ish Internet-ish Glossaries

By Paul Ford, Co-founder, Postlight

I’ve always found that when you get thrown into a new situation that glossaries and dictionaries are useful tools. Most things aren’t that hard to understand if you know the words. Since starting Postlight we’ve been thrown into a ton of new situations, and we’ve had to fake it more than usual, so I’ve started keeping track of various jargon files and dictionaries. (I also just ask a lot of dumb questions during meetings.) Here are a few I’ve noted lately, with representative definitions. Add others (on any subject, it’s a big world) to the comments if you’re in the mood.

Advertising and Marketing Technology

• “OpenX Glossary,” from OpenX
  frequency capping: Using cookies to track the impression count of ads served and stop any given ad being shown to a single visitor more than the set number of times.
• “Internet Marketing Terms Glossary,” from Direct Online Marketing
  Paid Inclusion — Advertising program where pages are guaranteed to be included in a search engine’s index in exchange for payment, though no guarantee of ranking well is typically given. For example, Looksmart is a directory that lists pages and sites, not based on position but based on relevance. Marketers pay to be included in the directory, on a CPC basis or a per-URL fee basis, with no guarantee of specific placement.
• “Glossary of Terminology,” IAB
  Hot Spot—A “hot spot” is an area of an ad unit, which when rolled-over/rolled-on by the user’s cursor, such rollover triggers an event (i.e. expand ad). The hotspot should never be larger than 1/4th the size of the original (collapsed) ad unit. The trigger event should not occur unless the user’s cursor rests in the hotspot zone for at least 1-second. Hotspots should never initiate audio (audio should only be initiated by a click). When hotspots are used, the trigger event should stop immediately upon the user’s cursor leaving the hotspot zone (i.e. ad collapses), and the ad unit should return to its original state.

Internet of Things

• “The 2015 Internet of Things Dictionary,” by LinkLabs
  Operational Technology (OT) — As opposed to IT, this refers to technologies associated with control and automation. If IT helps run business processes, OT helps execute the physical interactions that control value creation.
• IoT Dictionary, by Aeris (VERY broad and detailed!)
  TETRA—Terrestrial Trunked Radio. This operates as a two-way transceiver and is popularly used by the emergency services as well as on transport such as rail and on marine vessels. It operates on low frequencies split over 4 channels (ranging between 380 and 400 MHz for emergency services and higher for civilian use). The use of low frequencies allows for far greater transmission distances but lower data transfer rates.

Financial technology, or fintech

• Sadly, financial technology has a jargon problem. I haven’t been able to find a great jargon guide to save my life; they all feature definitions of words like “app.” Help!

Fine dining

• Restaurant Terms Explained Decode, by OpenTable
  En papillote—[ahn pa-pee-yawt] A method of cooking the food in a folded parcel, usually made from parchment paper

Classics

• The Cyberpunk Dictionary
  communitek n.—An information technology, which provides the potential for a community to develop in cyberspace. IRC and mailing lists are two communiteks.
• The 1981 version of The Jargon File, by Guy L. Steele Jr. and the MIT AI Community
  FEATURE—1. n. A surprising property of a program. Occasionally documented. To call a property a feature sometimes means that the author of the program did not consider the particular case, and the program makes an unexpected, although not strictly speaking an incorrect response. See “bug”. “That’s not a bug, that’s a feature!” A bug can be changed to a feature by documenting it. 2. A well-known and beloved property, a facility. Sometimes features are planned, but are called crocks by others. An approximately correct spectrum: BUG SCREW LOSS MISFEATURE CROCK KLUDGE WIN FEATURE PERFECTION (the last is never actually attained).