The Lexicon of New Media Terms

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Note: These entries have been loosely complied from hundreds of online and print sources. Make independent confirmation and proper citation before using any of this material for professional or academic purposes.

Terms beginning with "V"

• validation: Making sure a Web page is compliant with current HTML specifications and avoids proprietary tags which only work in a specific browser.
• VALS: Values and Lifestyles, a way of segmenting consumers into mutually exclusive groups like "Achievers" or "Experiencers" based on their psychographics.
• vaporware: A product (typically software) which marketers promote heavily before making it available, but the product is never actually released.
• VB: Visual Basic, Microsoft's entry-level programming language for Windows OS.
• VBScript: From "Visual Basic script," a scripting language often used with Microsoft products to perform automated functions.
• VC: Venture capitalists, the rich people who invest behind small companies in expectation of a big IPO or sale of the new firm later on.
• version number: The generation of a given application; for example, Photoshop 4.0 was an upgraded version of Photoshop 3.0. Marketers sometimes cheat and skip numbers between versions.
• VI: A text editor for use with the UNIX operating system.
• viral marketing: Online advertising, typcially through e-mail, which encourages recipients to spread the message (i.e. sign up 5 friends for a free gift)
• virus: A program hidden in another program or e-mail message which duplicates itself and may also do bad things like automatically delete files.
• visit: A series of page requests by a visitor without 30 minutes of inactivity.
• visitor: A user who requests a Web site; actual totals for a site's number of visitors are a difficult but important traffic metric.
• VR: Virtual Reality, a method of simulating a world or using all a person's senses to interface with a computer.
• VRML: Virtual Reality Modeling Language, a way to make 3-D objects and worlds linked together through the Web.

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Note: These entries have been loosely complied from hundreds of online and print sources. Make independent confirmation and proper citation before using any of this material for professional or academic purposes.