Microspeak: marketing fodder
users Not restricted to Microsoft, this is a piece of terminology that challenges all "players" in the software/Internet arena. Users is a synonym for audience or consumers - you track the number of users who visit your website or use your product - but a less than ideal one, since it conjures images of either manipulators or drug addicts. Unfortunately, other synonyms (see eyeballs) have failed to replace users in the collective industry vocabulary. © Ken Barnes	A term with high frequency in many sectors beyond the software area, it relates to people who are often ignored or despised by the providers of what is "used" - yet who are after all the most important actors, ie. those who pay the salaries of the suits and geeks at HQ, wherever that is...

Microspeak: marketing fodder

users: Not restricted to Microsoft, this is a piece of terminology that challenges all "players" in the software/Internet arena. Users is a synonym for audience or consumers - you track the number of users who visit your website or use your product - but a less than ideal one, since it conjures images of either manipulators or drug addicts. Unfortunately, other synonyms (see eyeballs) have failed to replace users in the collective industry vocabulary.

A term with high frequency in many sectors beyond the software area, it relates to people who are often ignored or despised by the providers of what is "used" - yet who are after all the most important actors, ie. those who pay the salaries of the suits and geeks at HQ, wherever that is...

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