Monday, September 8, 2003		ITerminology

Cost per thousand: Abbreviated as CPM (the letter ‘M’ in the abbreviation is the Roman numeral for one thousand), it is used by Internet marketers to price ad banners. Sites that sell advertising will guarantee an advertiser a certain number of impressions (number of times an ad banner is downloaded and presumably seen by visitors.), then set a rate based on that guarantee times the CPM rate. A Website that has a CPM rate of $ 25 and guarantees advertisers 6,00,000 impressions will charge $ 15,000 ($25 x 600) for those advertisers’ ad banner.

Critical path method: Abbreviated CPM, a project management technique that analyses what activities have the least amount of scheduling flexibility (i.e., are the most mission-critical) and then predicts project duration schedule based on the activities that fall along the "critical path." Activities that lie along the critical path cannot be delayed without delaying the finish time for the entire project. Projects planned with CPM typically are graphically represented in a diagram showing how each activity is related to the others.

Taxonomy: The science of categorisation, or classification, of things based on a predetermined system.

Sampling rate: Also called a sample rate. Typically expressed in samples per second, or hertz (Hz), the rate at which samples of an analog signal are taken in order to be converted into digital form. A PC’s sound card typically will sample a received analog signal, such as through a microphone, and digitise it for use by the computer.