Welcome to The Fields Agency, Your digital marketing partner. On this blog we will offer  a vast array of digital marketing strategies, industry news, and best practices. Before we get in into the meat of growing your brand and business, I want to make sure that we speak the same language. I will start you off with some beginners internet marketing vocabulary so that we can understand each other better.

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me, we are here to help.

Blog

Short for web log, blogs are online diaries/news forums, with views and links expressing opinions and observations, usually on a specific topic or industry and are usually updated to regularly reflect the personality of the author. Blogs may be tools to engage potential buyers and establish thought leadership.

Creative Commons

An organization that has developed a number of licenses that creators can use to flag the rights of use they will allow for their content.

White Papers

An authoritative report or guide that serves to solve a problem and generates awareness about a product/service/organization, and cause people to inquire and potentially buy the product/service in question.

Communities

Virtual or online communities are used for a variety of social and professional groups interacting via the Internet. As community members exchange ideas, share opinions, or discuss solutions, advertisers can include their message as part of the flow of information.

Animated GIF 

An animation created by combining multiple GIF images in one file. The result is multiple images, displayed sequentially, giving the appearance of movement.

Aspect ratio 

The width-to-height ratio of a picture or video frame. Analog TV broadcasts at a 4:3 (1.33:1) aspect ratio; digital TV broadcasts with a 16:9 (1.78:1) ratio; and most feature films are shot in at least a 1.85:1 ratio.

Codec 

Short for compressor/decompressor. Codecs are computer algorithms that are used to compress the size of audio, video, and image files for streaming over a data network or storage on a computer. Apple’s QuickTime, Microsoft’s Windows Media Video, and MP3 are examples of common codecs.

Cookie 

Usually a small piece of data sent from a website and stored in a user’s web browser while a user is browsing a website. When the user browses the same website in the future, the data stored in the cookie can be retrieved by the website to notify the website of the user’s previous activity.

CSS (Cascading Style Sheet)

A stylesheet language used to describe the presentation of a document written in a markup language. CSS provides a more elegant alternative to straight HTML to quickly specify the look and feel of a single Web page or a group of multiple Web pages.

Display Advertising 

a form of online advertising where an advertiser’s message is shown on a destination web page, generally set off in a box at the top or bottom or to one side of the content of the page.

Drill down 

When an online user accesses more and more pages of the Web site, i.e., he or she goes deeper into the content of the site.

e-Books

Digital versions of books that can be read, annotated, searched and browsed using a computer or mobile electronic reading device.

E-mail Advertising 

Banner ads, links or advertiser sponsorships that appear in e-mail newsletters, e-mail marketing campaigns and other commercial e-mail communications. Includes all types of electronic mail (e.g., basic text or HTML-enabled).

ETV (Enhanced Television)  

A type of interactive television technology which allows content producers to send data and graphical “enhancements” through a small part of the regular analog broadcast signal called the Vertical Blanking Interval. These enhancements appear as overlays on the video and allow viewers to click on them if they are watching TV via special set-top box/software services.

Eyeballs 

Slang term for audience; the number of people who view a certain website or advertisement.

Fold 

The line below which a user has to scroll to see content not immediately visible when a Web page loads in a browser. Ads or content displayed “above the fold” are visible without any end-user interaction. Monitor size and resolution determine where on a Web page the fold lies. Today, considering the ‘fold’ may arguably not pose much of an issue considering the rapid pace of mobile device usage and the multiple screen resolutions that are coming with it. Therefore, we ask ourselves, where exactly does the fold lie on our screens?

Frame Rate

The number of frames of video displayed during a given time. The higher the frame rate, the higher-quality the image will be.

GUI (Graphical User interface) 

A way of enabling users to interact with the computer using visual icons and a mouse rather than a command-line prompt/interpreter.

InDesign

Software used by publishers for design and layout in print and online.

Micro-sites 

Multi-page ads or product pages accessed via click-through from initial ad or product page. The user stays on the publisher’s Web site, but has access to more information from the advertiser than a display ad may allow.

Netiquette 

A term that is used to describe the informal rules of conduct (“do’s and Don’ts”) of online behavior.

Plug-in 

a program application that can easily be installed and used as part of a Web browser. Once installed, plug-in applications are recognized by the browser and their function integrated into the main HTML file being presented. Plug-ins are being widely used in conjunction with Content Management Systems to provide ancillary functionality to websites.

Production Teams 

The production team consists of all the people involved in producing the advertising product, from engineers to directors.

Rich Media

Online ads that contain motion, sounds, or video and usually use Java or Flash to enhance the viewer’s experience.

RSS Feeds (Really Simple Syndication)

A process for publishing content on the Internet that facilitates moving that content into other environments. Top news stories on a website can be published as an RSS “feed” and pulled into and delivered via a Web portal site. RSS Readers enable users to subscribe to one or more RSS feeds.

Social marketing 

A marketing tactic that taps into the growth of social networks, encouraging users to adopt and pass along widgets or other content modules created by a brand, or to add a brand to the user’s social circle of friends.

Splash page

a preliminary page that precedes the user-requested page of a Web site that usually promotes a particular site feature or provides advertising. A splash page is usually timed to move on to the requested page after a short period of time or a click. Sometimes they are used as an interim page meanwhile the main website is being developed.