guideTCE Terminology Guide: Key Terms and Definitions

Introduction

In this guide, we provide a list of key terms and definitions related to the TCE platform. Whether you're a new user or an experienced content professional, this guide will help you better understand the TCE platform and its features. From the TCE platform itself to terms like dashboard app, organisation, buyer, seller, feed, and channel subscription, we cover all the essential terms related to TCE.

Foundational Terms & Concepts

In this first section, we cover foundational terms and concepts that are crucial for understanding how the TCE platform works.

TCE Platform

The TCE Platform is a comprehensive software platform that enables content buyers and sellers to exchange and manage digital content in a flexible and cost-effective way. The platform serves as a centralized hub where content sellers can upload and manage their content, and content buyers can browse, select, and purchase content-items from a variety of sources. The TCE Platform offers a range of features and tools to help users manage and organize their content, including feeds, channels, and topics.

User

A user is a person who has an account on the platform. A user is always part of an organisation.

Organisation

An organisation is a company or other legal entity that has an account on the platform. An organisation can have multiple users. An organisation can be a buyer or a seller. An organisation can also be both a buyer and a seller.

Buyer

A buyer is an organisation that buys content from the platform. Usually, this is a media organisation that wants to publish content on their own platform. These are identified as organisations that have at least one channel subscription.

Seller or Publisher

A seller is an organisation that sells content to the platform. These are identified as organisation that have at least one source on the platform.

TCE lists all organisations that are sellers on the platform here: https://tce.exchange/publishers

Although TCE recognizes the differences between sellers and publishers, we use both terms interchangeably.

Source

A source is a collection of content items from a specific organisation. Organisation can have multiple sources. Each source has a integration with the publisher of the content. This can be a CMS, RSS feed or other API based integration. Each content-item that is ingressed into the platform is linked to a source.

Topic

A topic is given to a source to describe the kind or category of content that is in the source. Each source can have multiple topics. Topics are used to filter content in feeds and channels.

TCE publishes a list of topics that can be used by sellers to categorize their content. This list can be found here: https://tce.exchange/topics

Content-item

This is the smallest unit of content on the platform. A content-item is a piece of content that is ingressed into the platform. A content-item can be a single article, a video, a podcast or any other piece of content. It usually has a title, a description, images and a body.

Ingressing

This is what we call the process of copying content from a publisher to the platform as a new content-item. The configuration for ingress are described in the source definition, like the topics to associate with the content-item. TCE supports ingress from a CMS, RSS feed or other API based integration, described in more detail below.

Platform Features

In this second section, we dive into the platform features that make the TCE platform such a powerful tool for content exchange.

Search

The search feature allows users to search for content-items on the platform. The search is based on the title, description and body of the content-items. The search is not case sensitive, results are ordered by relevance.

Dashboard App

The application intended for the users of the platform to view their feeds and channel and content, download or buy content. Located at: https://app.tce.exchange

Distribution & pricing rules

A seller can set distribution and pricing rules for their content. For each source a seller can set:

  • Who can see the content
  • Who can buy the content
  • The price of the content
  • Under what conditions the content can be bought and used

Furthermore, sellers can limit publication of content to specific countries, or to specific organisations. They can specify usage on other platforms (like social media platform) and how to attribute the content.

Feed

A feed is a collection of content items based on:

  • one or more selected sources
  • search terms
  • selected topics
  • selected languages

or a combination of these. It is the primary way of selecting content on the platform from which users select content-items to buy and download. The purchase price is listed for each content-item in the feed.

Channel

A channel is a feed that is preconfigured by TCE. Users can be subscribed to channels. There a 2 types of channels: filtered and manual. A filtered channel is a channel that is automatically generated based on a set of filters, like a feed. A manual channel is a channel that is manually curated by TCE that places specific content-items in the channel.

Channel subscription

A channel subscription is a service offered by the TCE platform that allows users to subscribe to channels, which are preconfigured feeds of content-items that can be curated either manually or automatically by TCE.

When a user subscribes to a channel, they gain access to a stream of curated content-items that meet the criteria of the channel. The user can download content-items from their subscribed channels, and each download is considered a purchase under an organization-wide financial agreement with TCE. This means that the purchase price of a content-item may not be based solely on the purchase price of a single content-item, but rather determined by an organization-wide financial agreement with TCE.

By subscribing to channels, users can stay up to date with the latest content in their areas of interest without the need to manually browse through feeds or search for specific content-items. Channel subscriptions also simplify the content exchange process by offering a convenient and efficient way for users to access the content they need.

Organisation deal

An organization deal is a financial agreement between a buying organization and TCE that establishes the price of content-items based on the number of items purchased. The terms of an organization deal may include specific conditions such as the start date, minimal content items per month, price per content item, and renewal options.

RSS Export

An RSS export is a generated (M)RSS feed based on a channel or feed. These are meant to facilitate the distribution of content to other platforms that are working with a revenue share model, as the TCE platform does not count every content-item in the RSS feed as a sale.

Content Ingressing

Content ingress is the process of ingressing content from a publisher to the platform. This can be done through a CMS, RSS feed or other API based integration. Each content-item that is ingressed into the platform is linked to a source.

Here is a list of the different types of ingresses that are supported by TCE:

  • Wordpress Plugin Ingress

    The Wordpress plugin is a plugin that can be installed on a Wordpress site to enable the site to publish content to the TCE platform.

  • Managed CMS Ingress

    A managed CMS is a CMS that is made available for content sellers that do not have their own CMS. This is a service provided by TCE. The CMS is managed by TCE and the content seller can use it to publish content to the platform.

  • RSS Ingress

    An RSS ingress is a service provided by TCE that allows content sellers to upload RSS feeds to the platform. The RSS feeds are ingressed and converted to individual content-items, so that they can be managed and distributed on the platform. TCE suports RSS 2.0 and Media RSS extensions.

  • PDF Ingress

    A PDF ingress is a service provided by TCE that allows content sellers to upload PDF files to the platform. The PDF files are ingressed through an external partner that converts the PDF files to individual content-items, so that they can be managed and distributed on the platform.

  • API Ingress

    An API ingress is a service provided by TCE that allows content sellers to upload content-items to the platform through an API. TCE also supports fetching content-items from the API of the publisher/seller.

2023-03-17