---
title: Terminology
description: Terminology specific to Ocean Protocol.
---

## Asset (or Data Asset)

A data set or data service.

## Data Owner or Service Provider

Someone who has assets that they want to sell (or give away freely). An example is an almond distributor with 30 years of data about almond sales.

## Publisher

A service which mediates access to assets on behalf of data owners or service providers.

## Consumer

Someone who wants assets. An example is a data scientist working at an economic think tank.

## Marketplace

A service where publishers can list what assets they have, and consumers can see what's available then buy it (or get it for free). The Ocean network supports many marketplaces.

## More Terminology

See the page about Ocean's [Software Components](/concepts/components/).