Reader, Visitors, Users ... Oh My!

What to call your followers? Software had users, newspaper readers, television viewers, radio listeners, then came convergence and the 'Net and we couldn't figure out what the entity that traipsed from site to site should be called. "Readers," affirmed newspapers, "Visitors" chimed broadcasters -- a term more universally adopted with the advent of Online Ads and the Unique Visitor metric. And CMS vendors, which sold software to its customers -- some of which required clients, so they could reach their users.

So it is stunning and shocking to have The New York Times, suddenly shift gears and rename its followers to the more cyberian "user." According to Derek Gottfrid, senior software architect and product technologist at The Times, speaking at a Ad Age's Creativity and Technology Conference, readers evoke passivity. The new consumer of the Times, with its open interface is invited to be more active, developing applications, and "using" the site.

I have an issue with Users as they sound like Takers -- and with content free, that may be apropos. On the other hand, folks that are Using, often end up paying for their addictions, so perhaps, in the end, the name change is good.