Not a single reader. Not one. At least not online.
That’s what Derek Gottfrid announced at a conference sponsored by Advertising Age and Creativity. Gottfrid, the Times’ Senior Software Architect and Product Technologist (his business cards have to accordian out like a Playboy centerfold just to accommodate the length of his title), said the Times online has adopted the affectation of calling their online readers “users.”
“When we think traditionally about creation [at The New York Times] it was limited to people within the Times,” he said at the Creativity and Technology conference. “We created for readers … [for whom] it was a passive experience. But as we moved online, we wanted to move people from readers to users.”
It’s interesting to note that drug dealers also refer to their customers as users. And much like the New York Times, the dealers’ products also cloud their customers minds, impair their judgment, and cause irrational behavior.
In other words, good choice of names, New York Times.
Source: Advertising Age
