Close Corporation: A corporation whose shares are held by a
small number of shareholders and are not publicly traded.
Foreign Corporation: A corporation doing business in a
jurisdiction in which it was not formed.
General Partnership: A partnership in which each partner is
liable for all partnership debts and obligations in full regardless of the
amount of the individual partner's capital contribution.
Holding Company: A company whose sole function is to own and
control other companies.
Joint Venture: A cooperative business agreement or
partnership between two or more parties that is usually limited to a single
enterprise and that involves the sharing of resources, control, profits, and
losses.
Limited Liability Company: An unincorporated company formed
under applicable state statute whose members cannot be held liable for the
acts, debts, or obligations of the company and that may elect to be taxed as a
partnership.
Limited Partnership: A partnership in which the business is
managed by one or more general partners and is provided with capital by
limited partners who do not participate in management but who share in profits
and whose individual liability is limited to the amount of their respective
capital contributions.
Partnership by Estoppel: A partnership created by operation
of law when a defendant by words or conduct represents himself or herself to
the plaintiff or to the public as a partner and the plaintiff relies on the
representation to his or her detriment. Many affiliate programs fall within
this classification.
"S" Corporation: A corporation with a limited
number of shareholders that is treated as a partnership for tax purposes.
Sole Proprietorship: A business owned and controlled by one
person who is solely responsible for its obligations.
Business Agreements
Affiliate Terms & Conditions: Legal language defining the
relationship between a master site and Webmaster in relation to commissions,
business relationship, disputes and acceptable marketing methods.
Contract: An agreement between two or more parties that
creates in each party a duty to do or not do something and a right to
performance of the other's duty or a remedy for the breach of the other's
duty.
Member Terms & Conditions: Legal language on an adult
site identifying the guidelines for signing up and viewing material on an
adult site.
Model Release: A document establishing the age of a model and
the copyright use of images of the model.
Warning Page: An initial page on an adult site warning
viewers that they are about to view adult material and establishing that they
must be of majority age to view such material.
Site Related
18 USC 2557: A section of the relevant federal law defining
the requirements for maintaining proof of age documentation for sexual content
models.
Ad Banner: An advertisement on a Web page that links to an
advertiser's Web site. Ad banners are the most common unit of advertising on
the Web. It's called an ad "banner" because the original online
advertisements were always in the shape of a banner, usually at the top of a
page. Nowadays, many sizes of online ad banners exist. Full-sized banners
measure 468 pixels wide by 60 pixels high.
Adult Verification Service (AVS): One of several independent
commercial services designed to protect minors from accessing adult Internet
material by using credit card and password verification. An adult site's
opening warning screen can use a login process to link to the AVS for
membership signup and purchase or confirmation. In addition, surfers who
purchase memberships get their own unique ID number allowing them free access
to thousands of other linked adult sites. Webmasters get paid commissions from
the AVS for sign-ups and referrals through linking banners.
Adult Web Site: Any Web site displaying, offering, or linking
to sexually explicit content designed for audiences 18 years and older.
Advertisers: Purchasers of advertising space on others' Web
sites, usually in the form of a banner that links to the advertiser's Web
site.
Affiliate Advertising Program: A traffic-brokering program
whereby advertisers buy guaranteed volumes of traffic from the broker who then
pays affiliated Webmasters to display specific sets of program advertising
banners on their pages in order to generate the guaranteed traffic volumes.
Anime: An artistic and sensual type of Japanese animation.
Apache: Apache is a freely available Web server that is
distributed under an "open source" license. Version 1.3 runs on most
UNIX-based operating systems, and on Windows NT/95/98. According to the
Netcraft (www.netcraft.com) Web server survey in September 1998, more than 50
percent of all Internet servers were running Apache. Although Windows based
systems with Web servers from Microsoft, Netscape, and other companies are
probably gaining in terms of numbers, Apache is likely to remain popular in
enterprises and server locations (such as universities) where UNIX-based
systems are prevalent.
Average Bandwidth: A Web site's total bandwidth usage
averaged over one month's time.
Average Daily Click-Through Traffic: The number of times an
advertiser's banner is clicked on by surfers in a 24-hour period, averaged
over a longer period of time, such as per month.
Average Daily Impressions: The number of times an
advertiser's banner is displayed on others' Web pages in a 24-hour period,
averaged over a longer period of time, such as per month.
Average Daily Signups: The number of unique purchases by
surfers of online services from an advertiser's Web site in a 24-hour period,
averaged over a longer period of time, such as per month.
Average Daily Traffic To Home Page: The number of individual
visits to a Web site's home page in a 24-hour period, averaged over a longer
period of time, such as per month.
Back Bones: The Internet's high-speed data-transmission trunk
lines made up of privately owned regional telecommunication cables that serve
as major access points to which other networks can connect.
Back Window: An advertising process that uses a special
hidden link to direct a surfer who exits a particular Web site to another
special directory page featuring several related links and/or banners to
selected advertisers.
Bandwidth: The actual amount (or total potential amount) of
data transmitted or received through a particular channel per unit of time. In
digital systems, bandwidth is data speed in bits per second (bps). Thus, a
modem that works at 57,600 bps has twice the bandwidth of a modem that works
at 28,800 bps. In a qualitative sense, bandwidth is proportional to the
complexity of the data for a given level of system performance. For example,
it takes more bandwidth to download a photograph in one second than it takes
to download a page of text in one second. Large sound files, computer
programs, and animated videos require still more bandwidth for acceptable
system performance. Currently, virtual reality (VR) and full-length
three-dimensional audio and visual presentations require the most bandwidth of
all.
Banner Ad Revenue: Either the total income generated from all
the various advertisers' ad banners located on a Webmaster's pages, or only
the income generated from a specific ad banner. This revenue can either be in
the form of click-through rewards or sign-up bonuses (for example, $0.02 per
click-through, or $3 5 per sign-up).
Banner Exchange: A service designed to provide Webmasters
with a way to increase traffic to their site by swapping banners with other
sites. The banner exchange service usually offers to provide an exchange ratio
such as 2:1 or 3:2. This means, for example, that for every three times a
banner exchange banner is shown on your site, your banner will be shown on
another member's site two times. Some services allow you to have multiple
banners with an auto-weighting feature that allows the program to display your
most clicked-on banner the majority of the time.
Bestiality: Sexual relations between a person and an animal.
Bit: The basic unit of information in a binary numbering
system. The word "bit" derives from the phrase binary digit.
Electronic circuitry in computers can detect the difference between two states
(high current and low current) and represents these two states as one of two
numbers 0 or I. This basic high/low, either/or, yes/no units of information
are called bits. Eight bits comprise a byte.
Blind Link: A misleading link created on a site to entice a
person to click through to a new site, but directs the consumer to a different
subject.
Bondage: Sexual behavior based on a formalized, dominant
master and submissive slave relationship. This can extend to the use of
restraints and other sadomasochistic behavior.
Browser: A program used to view, download, upload, or
otherwise access documents (pages) on the World Wide Web. Browsers read
"marked up" or coded pages (usually HTML but not always) that reside
on servers and interpret that coding as a Web page. Netscape Navigator and
Microsoft Internet Explorer are examples of Web browsers.
Byte: Abbreviation for binary term, a unit of storage capable
of holding a single character. On almost all modern computers, a byte is equal
to 8 bits. Large amounts of memory are indicated in terms of kilobytes (1,024
bytes), megabytes (1,048,576 bytes), and gigabytes (1,073,741,824 bytes). A
disk that can hold 1.44 megabytes, for example, is capable of storing
approximately 1.4 million characters, or about 3,000 pages of text.
C: A high-level programming language developed at Bell Labs
in the mid 1970's. Although they originally designed it as a systems
programming language, C has proved to be so powerful and flexible that
programmers used it for a variety of applications, from business to
engineering. C is a particularly popular language for programming personal
computers because it is relatively small, and it requires less memory than
other languages. The first major program written in C was the UNIX operating
system, and for many years C was considered to be inextricably linked with
UNIX. Now, however, C is an important language independent of UNIX. Although
it is a high-level language, C is much closer to assembly language than are
most other high-level languages. This closeness to the underlying machine '
language allows C programmers to write very efficient code. The low-level
nature of C, however, can make the language difficult to use for some types of
applications.
C++: A subset of C, C++ is high-level programming language
developed by Bjarne Stroustrup at Bell Labs in 1986. C++ adds object-oriented
features. C++ is one of the most popular programming languages for graphical
applications, such as those that run in Windows and Macintosh environments.
Capacity: The total bandwidth available to a Web site from
its own servers, or provided from a Web hosting service.
Chargeback: The fee (up to $100 or more per transaction)
charged by a credit card company to a merchant as a penalty for having to
reverse a transaction due to customer dissatisfaction with the original sale.
Usually this chargeback fee is nonnegotiable by the merchant. With the rapid
growth in the sales of intangible Internet products and services, verification
of customer dissatisfaction becomes much more critical since online merchants
currently have limited recourse to appealing these chargeback fees.
Chat Boards or Rooms: A site on the World Wide Web where any
number of computer users can type in messages to each other in real time (live
chat), creating an online conversation. These messages usually appear on an
area of the screen next to the user's nickname or handle. Most chat boards or
rooms have a particular topic (which you are expected to discuss) but some are
purely for meeting other people.
Circle Jerk: The tactic of linking in a continuous loop a
number of Web pages covered with related banner ads in order to capture
surfers and force them to choose one of the ad banners before they can exit
the loop.
Click Program: A type of advertising partnership program
designed to pay a Webmaster for advertising that provides click-through
traffic to the advertiser's site. Generally, the Webmaster is promised a fixed
amount for each unique visitor. Additional revenues may result from any sign
ups that result from this directed traffic.
Click-Through: The process in which a Web surfer chooses an
ad banner or text link by clicking on it to see the Web site it refers to.
Specifically, this process is what the sponsoring site counts as an ad click.
In practice, click and click-through tend to be used interchangeably. A
click-through, however, implies that the user actually received the
advertiser's destination page. Some advertisers are willing to pay only for
click-throughs rather than for ad impressions.
Click-Through Rate: The click-throughs per unit of time that
a particular ad banner or link generates.
Click-Through Ratio: The ratio of the number of times an
advertiser's banner must be displayed on others' Web sites (impressions)
before an individual surfer clicks on it to link to the advertised site.
Colocation (sometimes spelled "Co-location" or
"Collocation"): The provision of space for a customer's
telecommunications equipment on the service provider's premises. For example,
a Web site owner could place the site's own computer server on the premises of
the Internet service provider (ISP). Or an ISP could place its network router
on the premises of the company offering switching services with other ISPs.
The alternative to collocation is to have the equipment and the demarcation
point located at the customer's premises.
Common Gateway Interface (CGI): A standard way for a Web
server to pass a Web user's request to an application program and to receive
data back to forward to the user. When the user requests a Web page (for
example, by clicking on a highlighted word or entering a Web site address),
the server sends back the requested page. However, when a user fills out a
form on a Web page and sends it in, it usually needs to be processed by an
application program. The Web server typically passes the form information to a
small application program that processes the data and may send back a
confirmation message. This method or convention for passing data back and
forth between the server and the application is called the common gateway
interface (CGI). It is part of the Web's HTTP protocol.
Console (Exit, Pop-up, or Pass-Through): JavaScript windows
that appear on top of surfers' browsers as they navigate or leave a particular
site. These usually offer a series of links and ad banners that try to entice
the surfer to click through to an associated advertiser before they can exit
the site.
Content Provider: A rental source for any type of content
material that Webmasters cannot easily provide themselves, such as static
images, live or recorded video, animation, articles, etc. These companies hold
legal ownership to their materials but, for a fee, allow contractually
specified reproduction on the customer's Web site.
Conversion Ratio: A conversion ratio is based on how many
sign-ups an ad produces out of the total number of clicks it receives during a
specified time period. This ratio determines the ad's effectiveness and is a
way to evaluate the quality of the traffic the ad banner is sending or
receiving.
Cookie: A piece of information sent by a Web server to a Web
browser that the browser software is expected to save and to send back to the
server whenever the browser makes additional requests from the server.
Depending on the type of cookie used and the browser's settings, the browser
may accept or not accept the cookie and may save the cookie for either a short
time or a long time. Cookies might contain information such as login or
registration information, online shopping cart information, user preferences,
etc. When a server receives a request from a browser that includes a cookie,
the server is able to use the information stored in the cookie. For example,
the server might customize what is sent back to the user, or keep a log of
particular user's requests. Cookies are usually set to expire after a
predetermined amount of time and are usually saved in memory until the browser
software is closed down, at which time they may be saved to disk if their
"expire time" has not been reached. Cookies do not read your hard
drive and send your life story to the CIA, but they can be used to gather more
information about a user than would be possible without them. Cookies are
commonly used to rotate the banner ads that a site sends so that it doesn't
keep sending the same ad as it sends you a succession of requested pages. They
can also be used to customize pages for you based on your browser type or
other information you may have provided the Web site. Web users must agree to
let cookies be saved for them, but, in general, it helps Web sites to serve
users better.
Cost of Revenue: Cost directly associated with production of
revenue: overhead for infrastructure, etc.
Counter: On the Web, a counter is a program that counts and
typically displays how many people have visited an HTML page (usually the home
page). Many sites include a counter, either as a matter of interest or to show
that the site is popular. The counter can be part of a CGI application that
logs and analyzes requests. Counter companies provide the service of
monitoring sites that request it, counting home page requests, and updating
the number of visitors each time the home page is sent. A third-party who
monitors the counting of site visitors is called an auditor.
Custodian of Records: The individual maintaining custody of
all model releases for content on an adult site. Custodians of Records contact
information and location must be listed on the adult site pursuant to 18 USC
2257.
Daily Uniques: The number of first-time visitors to a
particular Web site in a 24-hour period.
Dedicated Server: A server that provides Internet services
for only a single Webmaster or Web site.
Development Costs: The cost to create and perfect a product.
Digital Subscriber Line (DSL): A technology for bringing
high-bandwidth information to homes and small businesses over ordinary copper
telephone lines. Digital data is transmitted to your computer directly as
digital data and this allows the phone company to use a much wider bandwidth
for transmitting it to you. Meanwhile, if you choose, the signal can be
separated so that some of the bandwidth is used to transmit an analog signal
so that you can use your telephone and computer on the same line and at the
same time. Assuming your home or small business is close enough to a telephone
company central office that offers DSL service, you may be able to receive
data at rates up to 6.1 megabits (millions of bits) per second (of a
theoretical 8.448 megabits per second), enabling continuous transmission of
motion video, audio, and even 3-D effects. More typically, individual
connections will provide from 1.544 Mbps to 512 Kbps downstream and about 128
Kbps upstream. A DSL line can carry both data and voice signals and the data
part of the line is continuously connected. DSL installations began in 1998
and will continue at a greatly increased pace through the next decade in a
number of communities in the U.S. and elsewhere. ADSL (Asymmetric Digital
Subscriber Line) is the form of DSL that will become most familiar to home and
small business users. ADSL is called "asymmetric" because most of
its two-way or duplex bandwidth is devoted to the downstream direction,
sending data to the user. Only a small portion of bandwidth is available for
upstream or user-interaction messages. However, most Internet and especially
graphics- or multi-media intensive Web data need lots of downstream bandwidth,
but user requests and responses are small and require little upstream
bandwidth. Using ADSL, up to 6.1 megabits per second of data can be sent
downstream and up to 640 Kbps upstream. The high downstream bandwidth means
that your telephone line will be able to bring motion video, audio, and 3-D
images to your computer or hooked-in TV set. In addition, a small portion of
the downstream bandwidth can be devoted to voice rather data, and you can hold
phone conversations without requiring a separate line. Unlike a similar
service over your cable TV line, using ADSL, you won't be competing for
bandwidth with neighbors in your area. In many cases, your existing telephone
lines will work with ADSL. In some areas, they may need upgrading.
Domain Name: An alphabetic name that identifies one or more
numerical IP addresses. For example, the domain name microsoft.com represents
about a dozen IP addresses. Domain names are used in URLs to identify
particular Web pages. For example, in the URL http://www.pcwebopedia.com/index.html,
the domain name is pcwebopedia.com.
DNS (Domain Name System or Service): An Internet service that
translates domain names into IP addresses. Because domain names are
alphabetic, they're easier to remember. The Internet however, is really based
on IP addresses. Every time you use a domain name, therefore, a DNS service
must translate the name into the corresponding IP address. For example, the
domain name www.example.com might translate to 198.105.232.4. The DNS system
is, in fact, its own network. If one DNS server doesn't know how to translate
a particular domain name, it asks another one, and so on, until the correct IP
address is returned.
Domain Registrar: Government-appointed companies (NSI and
five other test companies currently) who are paid to register and track the
ownership of Internet domain names. Because of the potential commercial value
of particular domain names, accurate and timely registration and proof of
ownership must be maintained. Recent instances of domain name hijacking have
revealed security problems with the current registration process.
EProcessors: Third-party electronic commerce solution
providers that provide payment processing for online businesses. They usually
offer real-time credit card processing, online checks, 900-phone billing, 24/7
detailed business reporting, 24/7 client services, and more.
Exit Site: The site that a surfer chooses to go to (or is
automatically presented with) upon leaving a particular Web site. Having
accurate exit-site data helps Webmasters better understand traffic flow from
their sites and the effectiveness of the banner ads on their sites.
FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions): A collection of answers to
the most frequently asked questions relating to a particular topic, company,
or Web site. Often provided by Webmasters as a service to assist new visitors
and to avoid repeatedly answering their same common questions and problems.
Fetish: A strong sexual interest in an object or a part of
the body other than the sexual organs (example: foot fetish).
Frames: A term used to describe a viewing and layout style of
a World Wide Web site; it refers to the simultaneous loading of two or more
Web pages at the same time within the same screen. Originally developed by
Netscape and implemented in their Navigator 2.0 browser, today many other
popular Web browsers support this feature. Some Web sites come in two
versions; a "frames" and "no frames" version. The frames
version usually takes a little longer to load and may contain other
"enhanced" features such as Java and animation.
Free Site: A site designed to present free samples of adult
content in a specific interest niche in order to collect surfers and direct
them on to associated pay sites. Free sites generate revenue from these pay
sites based upon total traffic or signups.
FTP: A standard Internet protocol used to transfer Web page
files from their creator to the computer that acts as their server for
everyone on the Internet. It's also commonly used to download programs and
other files to a computer from other servers.
Gross Margin: Total Revenue minus Cost of Revenue minus
Operating Expenses.
General and Administrative Overhead: Business expenses that
include rent, recruiting, miscellaneous fees. Allocation based on headcount.
Exchange Rate: In a banner exchange program, the ratio for
the number of other sites' banners a Webmaster must display before a banner
for their Web site gets displayed on another site.
Hit: A hit is a single file request in the log of a Web
server. A request for an HTML page with three graphic images will result in
four hits in the log: one for the HTML file and one for each of the graphic
image files. While a hit is a meaningful measure of how much traffic a server
handles, it can be a misleading indicator of how many pages are being looked
at. Instead, advertising agencies and their clients look at the number of
pages delivered and ad impressions.
Hosting Services: Hosting (also known as Web site hosting or
Web hosting) is the business of housing, serving, and maintaining files for
one or more Web sites. More important than the computer space that is provided
for Web site files is the fast connection to the Internet. Most hosting
services offer connections on T- 1 or T-3 lines. Typically, an individual
business hosting its own site would require a similar connection and it would
be expensive. Using a hosting service lets many companies share the cost of a
fast Internet connection for serving files. A number of hosting companies
describe their services as virtual hosting. Virtual hosting usually implies
that their services will be transparent and that each Web site will have its
own domain name and set of e-mail addresses. In most usages, hosting and
virtual hosting are synonyms.
Hot Link: A link that is used by one person to promote a
site, but is hosted by a second entity that provides bandwidth. A number of
sponsor programs allow this while others do not.
HTML: (Hypertext Markup Language) is the set of
"markup" symbols or codes inserted in a file intended for display on
a World Wide Web browser. The markup tells the Web browser how to display a
Web page's words and images for the user. The individual markup codes are
referred to as elements or tags. HTML is a standard recommended by the World
Wide Web Consortium (W3 Q and adhered to by the major browsers, Microsoft's
Internet Explorer and Netscape's Navigator, which also provide some additional
non-standard codes. The current version of HTML is HTML 4. However, both
Internet Explorer and Netscape implement some features differently and provide
nonstandard extensions. Web developers using the more advanced features of
HTML 4 may have to design pages for both browsers and send out the appropriate
version to a user. Significant features in HTML 4 are sometimes described in
general as dynamic HTML. What is sometimes referred to as HTML 5 is an
extensible form of HTML called XHTML.
HTTP: The Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) is the set of
rules for exchanging files (text, graphic images, sound, video, and other
multimedia files) on the World Wide Web.
ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers):
Created in the fall of 1998 in response to a policy statement issued by the US
Department of Commerce. This statement called for the formation of a private
sector not for-profit Internet stakeholder to administer policy for the
Internet name and address system. ICANN chose five companies (America Online,
France Telecom's Oleane unit, Register.com, Melbourne IT, and the Internet
Council of Registrars) to compete with Network Solutions Inc. (NSI) to test a
shared registration system for addresses ending in .com, .net, and .org. Now
it's up to these companies to bring real competition to the Domain Name System
and differentiate themselves from Network Solutions, which has prospered
thanks to a government-granted monopoly on registrations since 1993. During
the test, the five companies and NSI will be allowed direct access to register
domain names in the registry operated by NSI. The goal of the test is to work
out technical difficulties before the process of assigning names can be opened
up to include even larger numbers of registrars.
Impressions: The number of times that a particular ad banner
or complete Web page is displayed.
Intellectual Property: An idea, invention, trade secret,
process, program, data, formula, patent, copyright, or trademark or
application, right, or registration relating thereto.
The Internet: The Internet, sometimes called simply "the
Net," is a worldwide system of computer networks, a network of networks,
in which users at any one computer can, if they have permission, get
information from any other computer (and sometimes communicate directly to
users at other computers). It was conceived by the Advanced Research Projects
Agency (ARPA) of the U.S. government in 1969 and was first known as the
ARPANet. The original aim was to create a network that would allow users of a
research computer at one university to be able to communicate with research
computers at other universities. A side benefit of ARPANet's design was that,
because messages could be routed or rerouted in more than one direction, the
network could continue to function even if parts of it were destroyed in the
event of a military attack or other disaster. Today, the Internet is a public,
cooperative, and self-sustaining facility accessible to hundreds of millions
of people worldwide. Physically, the Internet uses a portion of the total
resources of the currently existing public telecommunication networks.
Technically, what distinguishes the Internet is its use of a set of protocols
called TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol).
Intranet: A private network that is contained within an
enterprise. It may consist of many interlinked local area networks and also
use leased lines in the wide area network. Typically, an intranet includes
connections through one or more gateway computers to the outside Internet. The
main purpose of an intranet is to share company information and computing
resources among employees. An intranet can also be used to facilitate working
in groups and for teleconferences. An intranet uses TCP/IP, HTTP, and other
Internet protocols and in general looks like a private version of the
Internet. With tunneling, companies can send private messages, through the
public network, using the public network with special encryption/decryption
and other security safeguards to connect one part of their intranet to
another. Typically, larger enterprises allow users within their intranet to
access the public Internet through firewall servers that have the ability to
screen messages in both directions so that company security is maintained.
When part of an intranet is made accessible to customers, partners, suppliers,
or others outside the company, that part becomes part of an extranet.
IP Address: An identifier for a computer or device on a
TCP/IP network. Networks using the TCP/IP protocol route messages based on the
IP address of the destination. The format of an IP address is a 32-bit numeric
address written as four numbers separated by periods. Each number can be zero
to 255. For example, 1.160.10.240 could be an IP address. Within an isolated
network, you can assign IP addresses at random as long as each one is unique.
However, connecting a private network to the Internet requires using
registered IP addresses (called Internet addresses) to avoid duplicates.
Java: Java is a programming language expressly designed for
use in the distributed environment of the Internet. It was designed to have
the "look and feel" of the C++ language, but it is simpler to use
than C++ and enforces a completely object-oriented view of programming. Java
can be used to create complete applications that may run on a single computer
or be distributed among servers and clients in a network. It can also be used
to build small application modules or applets for use as part of a Web page.
Applets make it possible for a Web page user to interact with the page.
The major characteristics of Java are:
The programs you create are portable in a network. Your
program is compiled into Java bytecode that can be run anywhere in a
network on a server or client that has a Java virtual machine. The Java
virtual machine interprets the bytecode into code that will run on the
real computer hardware. This means that individual computer platform
differences such as instruction lengths can be recognized and
accommodated locally just as the program is being executed.
Platform-specific versions of your program are no longer needed.
The code is "robust," here meaning that, unlike
programs written in C++ and perhaps some other languages, the Java
objects can contain no references to data external to themselves or
other known objects. This ensures that an instruction cannot contain the
address of data storage in another application or in the operating
system itself, either of which would cause the program and perhaps the
operating system itself to terminate or "crash. " The Java
virtual machine makes a number of checks on each object to ensure
integrity,
Java is object-oriented, which means that, among other
characteristics, similar objects can take advantage of being part of the
same class and inherit common code. Objects are thought of as
"nouns" that a user might relate to rather than the
traditional procedural "verbs." A method can be thought of as
one of the object's capabilities or behaviors.
In addition to being executed at the client rather than
the server, a Java applet has other characteristics designed to make it
run fast.
Relative to C++, Java is easier to learn. (However, it is
not a language you'll pick up in an evening!)
Java was introduced by Sun Microsystems in 1995 and instantly created a new
sense of the interactive possibilities of the Web. Both of the major Web
browsers include a Java virtual machine. Almost all major operating system
developers (IBM, Microsoft, and others) have added Java compilers as part of
their product offerings.
JavaScript: JavaScript should not be confused with Java.
JavaScript, which originated at Netscape, is interpreted at a higher level and
is easier to learn than Java but lacks some of the portability of Java and the
speed of bytecode. Because Java applets will run on almost any operating
system without requiring recompilation and because Java has no operating
system-unique extensions or variations, Java is generally regarded as the most
strategic language in which to develop applications for the Web. However,
JavaScript can be useful for very small applications that run on the Web
client or server.
Link: Text or image area on a Web page that a user can click
on to "connect to" or reference another document. Many possibilities
exist for what that document can be. Most commonly, links are thought of as
what connects two Web pages or Web sites. They can also, however, be
referencing a different part of the same document, linking to a file that will
download to your computer or triggering the launching of an external or helper
application that will then process the clicked-on file. What actually occurs
at a link is determined by the file's MIME type that is configured (setup) on
your computer system to make certain things happen when a N41ME type is
clicked on. For example it is configured in your browser preferences to
display Web page files whenever a file whose MIME extension is HTML. Links are
also called hyperlinks, hypertext and hot links and they are coded in HTML by
Web page authors.
Link Exchange: A formal reciprocal agreement in which member
sites offer links to each other's sites for the purpose of increasing surfer
traffic and increasing search engine popularity ratings.
Live Feed: A source for real-time streaming video (that is,
the event depicted is occurring in the present time).
Lolita: A precociously seductive girl, derived from Lolita in
Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita, 1955.
Market Niche: A unique, specialized area of a broader market
that can be targeted with specifically designed products or services.
Market Penetration: How much of the market niche a company
plans to reach.
Market Share: The percentage of the total sales of a given
type of product or service that is attributable to a given company.
Membership Site: A site in which consumers subscribe to gain
access to a collection of adult content. Usually charged on a monthly basis.
Metric: A unit of measurement. Also, use of statistical
analysis and modeling to describe the numerical relationships between key
business, marketing, or economic factors; those factors that can be measured
using various analytical techniques.
MIME (Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions): The MIME
standard is universally used by Web Servers to identify the files they are
sending to Web clients, in this way new file formats can be accommodated
simply by updating the browsers' list of pairs of MIME-Types and appropriate
software for handling each type.
Mirroring: Refers to the process of copying a Web site or set
of files on a computer server to another computer server (mirror site) in
order to reduce network traffic, ensure better availability of the Web site or
files, or make the site or downloaded files arrive more quickly for users
closer to the mirror site. Mirroring is the practice of creating and
maintaining these mirror sites. A mirror site is an exact replica of the
original site and is usually updated frequently to ensure that it reflects the
content of the original site. Mirror sites are used to make access faster when
the original site may be geographically distant (for example, a much-used Web
site in Germany may arrange to have a mirror site in the United States). In
some cases, the original site (for example, on a small university server) may
not have a high-speed connection to the Internet and may arrange for a mirror
site at a larger site with higher-speed connection and perhaps closer
proximity to a large audience.
News Group (or Newsgroup): An online forum for discussion
about a particular subject consisting of notes written to a central Internet
site and redistributed through Usenet, a worldwide network of news discussion
groups. Usenet uses the Network News Transfer Protocol (NNTP). Newsgroups are
organized into subject hierarchies, with the first few letters of the
newsgroup name indicating the major subject category and subcategories
represented by a subtopic name. Many subjects have multiple levels of
subtopics. Some major subject categories are: news, rec (recreation), soc
(society), sci (science), comp (computers), and so forth (there are many
more). Users can post to existing newsgroups, respond to previous posts, and
create new newsgroups. Newcomers to newsgroups are requested to learn basic
Usenet "netiquette" and to get familiar with a newsgroup before
posting to it. A FAQ is provided. The rules can be found when you start to
enter the Usenet through your browser or an online service. You can subscribe
to the postings on a particular newsgroup. Some newsgroups have a designated
person serving as moderator who decides which postings to allow or to remove.
Most newsgroups are unmoderated.
Online Check: A payment method whereby the payer submits
information to the online merchant (or to a third-party holding company) about
their checking account and authorizes either a single withdrawal or regular
series of withdrawals.
Paid Site: A Web site that offers content only to its paying
membership. These members are encouraged to subscribe on an ongoing basis
using the promise of fresh, targeted content that will be provided on a
regular basis. Many paid sites offer a limited-tour for a onetime trial
payment.
Pay-Per-Click Search Engine: Search engines that auction
placement under keywords which eliminates the need for optimizing the site in
question.
Personals: Online versions of personal classified ads that
are designed to allow those placing the ads to meet other people with the same
romantic or sexual interests.
Pic Post: An adult Web site specializing in erotic pictures.
Pipes: Networking jargon for the physical connection to a
computer network.
Primary Content Producer: An individual or entity physically
producing adult content often for resale or leasing.
Product Development: Process of creating and perfecting new
or improved products. (New Product Development: process of conceiving,
designing, developing, testing, and bringing to market a new product.)
Protocol: (Pronounced PROH-tuh-cahl), the special set of
rules for communicating that the end points in a telecommunication connection
use when they send signals back and forth. Both end points must recognize and
observe the protocol. Protocols are often described in an industry or
international standard. On the Internet, there are the TCP/IP protocols,
consisting of
TCP (Transmission Control Protocol), which uses a set of
rules to exchange messages with other Internet points at the information
packet level
IP (Internet Protocol), which uses a set of rules to send
and receive messages at the Internet address level
HTTP, FTP, and other protocols, each with defined sets of
rules to use with other Internet points relative to a defined set of
capabilities
Public Domain: The realm or status of property rights that
belong to the community at large, are unprotected by copyright or patent, and
are subject to appropriation by anyone. Redirect: The process of using a
special or concealed link to direct a surfer's click through or exit request
so that instead of the surfer arriving at their anticipated Web site
destination, they arrive at one selected by the designer of the link instead.
Referring Site: The Web site from which the surfer made the decision to click
through to another advertised or linked site.
Search Engine: A search engine is a type of software that
creates indexes of databases or Internet sites based on the titles of files,
keywords, or the full text of files. The search engine has an interface that
allows you to type what you're looking for into a blank field. It then gives
you a list of the results of the search. When you use a search engine on the
Web, the results are presented to you in hypertext, which means you can click
on any item in the list to get the actual file. Search engines on the Web
consist of four elements:
A program that roams the area to be searched, collecting
data records (typically, Web pages) and links to more data (These are
variously known as spiders, worms, crawlers, or other colorful names.)
A database or collection of records recovered by the
spiders or other type of collector
An index of the database collected to enable fast access
to terms that the user searches for and their supporting records
A search interface (the form in which the user enters
search terms and the software behind it that queries the index,
retrieves matches, and ranks for relevance and organizes the data for
follow-on searches)
Each of the major search engines differs in its approach to these four
elements.
Search Engine Optimization: A variety of methods used in an
attempt to place a site high under particular keywords on a search engine.
Secondary Content Producer: An individual or entity using the
content of a Primary Content Producer.
Server/Client: 1) In general, a server is a computer program
that provides services to other computer programs in the same or other
computers. The computer that a server program runs in is also frequently
referred to as a server (though it may contain a number of server and client
programs). In the client/server programming model, a server is a program that
awaits and fulfills requests from client programs in the same or other
computers. A given application in a computer may function as a client with
requests for services from other programs and a server of requests from other
programs. Specific to the Web, a Web server is the computer program (housed in
a computer) that serves requested HTML pages or files. A Web client is the
requesting program associated with the user. The Web browser in your computer
is a client that requests HTML files from Web servers.
Site Directory: A Web site that features a sorted index of
links to a variety of other Web sites, organized by category, often including
a short description of the content featured on each site listed.
Site Promotion: The various methods of advertising available
to a Webmaster that are designed to drive traffic to a specific Web site.
Spam: Unsolicited Commercial E-mail [UCE]. Messages sent
without permission to e-mail accounts and newsgroups to name a few.
Sponsors: The advertisers that agree to buy advertising on a
particular Web site.
Stickiness: The ability of a Web site to attract and hold the
attention of surfers; the stickier the site, the longer a surfer is inclined
to linger and explore its content.
Surf, Surfer: In using the World Wide Web, to surf is to
either explore a sequence of Web sites in a random, unplanned way, or simply
use the Web to look for something in a questing way. As the term is ordinarily
used, if an Internet user is going to one specific site that they already know
about, they aren't surfing. The term suggests an analogy between an ocean
surfer looking for great waves and a Web surfer looking for great sites.
Text Link Revenue: The revenue generated (per unit of time)
by a formal advertising agreement based upon payments for click-throughs from
a text-based link found in a specific site directory.
TGP: Thumbnail Gallery Posting. Sites where you can submit
single adult image pages to attract traffic to a pay site.
Traffic: The number of unique visitors to a particular Web
site per unit of time.
Traffic Brokering: A revenue generating program whereby
advertisers buy guaranteed volumes of traffic from the broker (a business that
negotiates volume buying and selling of products or services) who then pays
affiliated Webmasters to display specific sets of program advertising banners
on their pages in order to generate the guaranteed traffic volumes.
Traffic Drivers: Individuals or entities that develop methods
for moving consumers to particular sites in exchange for a commission on the
volume of traffic or memberships.
Unique: The number of first-time visitors in a 24-hour period
to a particular Web site.
URL: A URL (Uniform Resource Locator) (pronounced YU-AHR-EHL)
is the address of a file (resource) accessible on the Internet. The type of
resource depends on the Internet application protocol. Using the World Wide
Web's protocol, the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP), the resource can be an
HTML page, an image file, a program such as a CGI application or Java applet,
or any other file supported by HTTP. The URL contains the name of the protocol
required to access the resource, a domain name that identifies a specific
computer on the Internet, and a hierarchical description of a file location on
the computer. An HTTP URL can be for any Web page (not just a home page) or
any individual file.
Voyeur: A person with an exaggerated interest in secretly
viewing the activities of others for sexual gratification.
Web Ring (or Webring): A way of interlinking related Web
sites so that you can visit each site one after the other, eventually (if you
keep going) returning to the first Web site, Typically, users can also elect
to go backwards through the ring of sites, skip a certain number at a time,
visit sites randomly, or see a list of all the sites on the ring. A ring is
managed from one site which includes a CGI application that can select random
sites and bypass sites that have dropped out or aren't reachable. The ring
idea seems to have caught on as a more dynamic alternative to the list of
"favorite sites" that many Web sites offer. The originator of the
idea, Sage Weil (now 19 and in college), started the first ring in May 1995.
With several collaborators, Sage has created WebRing, a Web ring management
system. As of April 1998, there were over 40,000 Web rings using the system.
Webmaster: A person who either creates and manages the
information content (words and pictures) and organization of a Web site, or
manages the computer server and technical programming aspects of a Web site,
or both.
World Wide Web (Web): All the resources and users on the
Internet that are using the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP).