TheWayoftheWeb

For a while I’ve read various people debating whether ‘traditional’ terms for people online are still effective. Do we really just want ‘visitors’ - as if they turn up, pay their museum entry fee, look at the exhibits and then leave? Or is it fair to assume they’re users - as if we’re peddling heroin? Especially as a ‘user’ is linked to user accounts and usernames. And only those who actually make a transaction can really be termed ‘consumers’. (They’re not ‘Unique Users’ in analytics/metrics, they’re Unique IPs…but I think that’s not something that can be changed now!)

I think it’s a shame that ad agencies and computing have sewn up ‘client’. It’s more informal than consumer, and yet infers a bit more choice and power on the part of the individual than the other terms. And like an agency, any website publisher has to constantly evolve and adapt to meet the needs of their clients…

I did try to work out a reason for renaming the audience Flibbertigibbets, but even my tenuous grip on reality struggled with that one.

So, like an age old riddle, what’s someone who can come and read a website and leave, come and interact, or come and take part in spending money?

So far, my best effort is ‘Participant‘. If we accept that participation starts at going to a url and observing the content, and goes up to spending every second of the day interacting, posting, uploading and purchasing. And if you look at the Wikipedia entries for participation, it starts to make sense:

‘Participation, in addition to its dictionary definition, has specific meanings in certain areas.

• Participation (decision making), a notion in theory of management, economics and politics
• Participation (VR), a notion from virtual reality
• Participation (ownership), sharing something in common with others
• Participation (Finance), getting some benefit from the performance of a certain underlying asset

• Participation constraint (ER modelling), a special case of a multiplicity constraint’

So it can incorporate decision making, benefit, multiplicity, sharing, and being involved in a virtual reality? If you really want, you can split it into Reading Participants, Posting Participants, Uploading Participants, Buying Participants. You can even have a past participle if it makes you happy!

I’d be interested to know if other people think it’s a change worth making, and whether it’s worth participating or not?

But in the meantime, and due to London meetings and train travel, you can get your daily fill of me at http://www.twitter.com/badgergravling. Or @badgergravling to the cool kids.

Hello Google,

There are many things you’ve done which I’ve appreciated. Search, Google maps, Gmail etc have all been great, and I know you’re very busy with lots of new projects and trying to figure out how on earth they’ll make money out of Youtube. And Adsense means I can cling to the dream that my blog will make me millions and allow me to retire to a small island I’ve bought.

But would you mind sorting out my Page Rank please? My old blog had a PR of about 4, and I’ve made sure it’s no longer being indexed in case of duplicate content. It’s been 10 weeks now, and I’ve been shown how important it is to have a reasonable Page Rank. You are indeed all powerful.

And I know Matt Cutts once said that the Google Toolbar Page Rank is republished every 3 months, but I can’t wait two more weeks to become a millionaire!

So how about it? And can you keep at eye on 140char as well please?

Cheers

Dan

By nature, I’m a frustrated librarian and a compulsive hoarder. My music collection is in alphabetical and chronological order, and my loft is packed with old video consoles and other collections which I know fatherhood will stop me from indulging in, except as family heirlooms in 30 years time!

Part of this is a reluctance to lend CDs and books, even to close friends, for fear of them being lost, or being returned with the spine of the book broken beyond all recognition.

But now access to knowledge and entertainment is instantly sharable from the moment of discovery. From the almost infinite resource of online knowledge I can share findings via links, Del.icio.us bookmarks, or RSS. My tastes in music are logged, and accessible via Last.fm, and TV and videos get distributed from Youtube, the BBC iPLayer, or where ever they’re found. And it doesn’t matter if my friends lose them, and they can’t return them broken. In fact, even if, God forbid, I lost all my saved files and links, I could find most of the memorable ones that mattered in a few minutes with Google.

There’s a popular quote by author and broadcaster Leo Laporte which has spread via shared links:

“I’m less likely to read print lately because I can’t tag, bookmark, and share the stories. Info gathering has become a social process for me”

And it rings true. Print and physical copies are now back-ups, or objects for sentimental value. They’re for those rare occasions that you want to get away from it all.

And that’s why I love links!