User implies passivity and lack of contribution. A service is provided , and it is used (or abused.) I’m a firm believer in the “my reality is stronger than your reality” idea, the meaning behind an interaction define the roles that will be played.

Participation implies consciousness and cooperation. Not consuming a resource.

Do you want your “people” to be abusers or collaborators? This is a core concept to the new net or whatever you want to call it. Perhaps a word should be created.

Want proof? Treat someone like a 9 year old and see them acting like one. This is all very human.

“Visitor” in the sense of a “brochure-style” website is fine, but in an application it makes no sense; you don’t just visit, you use.

In the sense of technical jargon for communication among programmers/business people, user is fine – though if you don’t like the connotation, you can use “customer” or “consumer” to their faces.

But amongst programmers they need a way to refer to the person who will end up using the application that differs from the “customer”, which would be the person paying them to develop it (in the case of freelance/contracting).

User is a specific term whereas “customer” or “consumer” is not really.

Though in other senses where you are not using something, visitor and reader make perfect sense, and fit better than user.

“Reader”, “customer”, “member”, or “person” are better alternatives.

There was a discussion at Orielly Radar for a better term to reflect this behavior and how the term “user” is inept. Looking at all the terms being suggested, somehow none of them feel quite right. Since there isn’t much anything from non-internet world that has such a parallel behavior, trying to take terms from that world doesn’t quite fit in.

I think the term “weber” would be great.

Some other terms that I liked: Persona (or rather, it ought to be a weber’s persona), prosumer, and @Justin’s suggestion of “tool” )

roles same as persona? naah.

There’s an issue that I think is important, about ‘users’ having different points of view, experiences, and desires that seems to be getting buried under this brouhaha about a label.

Robert Scoble’s Long Tail post is the only one I’ve read so far that talks about at least something more than just this terminology, and that is still only .01% of the iceberg, imho.

The other day when I posted about Zonbu, I added a few sentences expressing that I’d rather call people who own and use a device as “owners” instead of “users”, if appropriate:
…ownership implies that the possession …

That said, I’m sure we have better things to spend our time on. I recall back when I was waiting tables, a restaurant I worked at forced everyone to stop saying customer and say “guest” instead. This change was never explained, and a waste of time and created quite a bit of giggles.

Later another manager led initiative came along to call them diners, and it was quickly accepted. At a fine-dining establishment it was a term that held meaning and resulted in the correct behavior. To eat is a five minute task, but to dine is a two hour and up pleasure seeking event. When we had customers, we brought what they ordered and dropped a check. When they were diners, we were reminded to suggest paired wines, good starters, and tasty desserts.

At the end of the day, they’re all still just labels. I don’t understand why changing the label from X to Y is somehow being seen as an improvement.

Gosh, why am I suddenly thinking of that George Carlin routine….you know the one where he describes how the word “shell shock” over a generation gets modified to be known as “post traumatic stress disorder”.

Sure people are participating in media, but that doesn’t change the fact that they’re users of the interfaces that facilitate this democratization. And to call the participants anything other than users is doing a disservice.

Users works well because that is what people are until a service is no longer useful to them. A person may then create a new service which has users of it’s own. It’s possible to be both a user and a creator, but why take the focus off the utility of a service to its constituents?

Even if everyone is a creator they are creating for users.

According to Godaddy that domain (dictionarycrunch.com) is available… Maybe I’ll sweep it up before Duncan gets to it!

The same could be said of most sites/companies/products, including my hair dryer.

Indeed, long live the user. (And quit hating on Duncan all the time. It’s getting silly)

So I think the answer is personas. Clearly I’m biased, having done so much work on personas. But I challenge everyone who works in a company that builds products or websites to send out one email to prove my point, and it should say: “Hey guys. I’m curious about how aligned we are on our assumptions about who, exactly, our customers/users are and what problems we are trying to solve for them. Can you take five minutes and list three examples of our most important users and their needs? For example, “A mother of three who is worried about the websites her kids are visiting, and needs an easy way to keep track without having to search through the history in her browser.”"

You’re going to get answers that are not totally aligned–especially if you send the message to everyone from execs to engineers. And you really should include execs, if you are brave enough. Tell them that you’re not sure everyone in the company ‘fully understands their vision so you are trying to get some more clarity’ and that should help with the fear factor.

And alignment is the only way to get focus. And focus is the only way to build something that really kicks ass and will survive in the world of new 2.0 things coming out every single solitary day.

“a label is only as useful as the meaning behind it”… I think that is exactly what the argument is about. When people (individuals or groups) are treated as “users” it implies a whole perspective that ignores the process of interaction and the role of the individual in that process. It boils down interaction to “they just use it”, which is nonsense.

Well done Duncan for blogging this, but I am amazed at all the gliteratti lined up to discuss this pointless topic.

End of line.

Of course I’m joking, mostly.