Not consumers or users, but amateurs

Mary takes Intelliseek to task for calling the writers of the web 'consumers', but her suggestion of 'users' is equally infelicitous - even Scoble winces every time he says 'user generated content'.

We already have a word for people who create for the love of it, rather than being paid to, and it is 'amateurs'. As with many other pleasures, when we seek out opinions, we prefer those that flow from passion rather than from payment.

Now it may be argued that, given the decline in the teaching of Latin and French, the loving root of 'amateur' is no longer perceived, so those who write pour l'amour ou pour le sport may see 'amateur' as a slight. In which case lets retranslate it to english and call it 'lovingly created media'.

Technorati Tags: blogs, meme, rhetoric