user

Entity that has authority to use an application, equipment, facility, process, or system, or one who consumes or employs a good or service to obtain a benefit or to solve a problem, and who may or may not be the actual purchaser of the item.

I learned this one from Joe Kraus. Merely measuring something has an uncanny tendency to improve it. If you want to make your user numbers go up, put a big piece of paper on your wall and every day plot the number of users. You'll be delighted when it goes up and disappointed when it goes down. Pretty soon you'll start noticing what makes the number go up, and you'll start to do more of that. Corollary: be careful what you measure.

• Charging Customers Different Prices for the Same Product or Service
• Gathering Market Research for Upcoming Products and Services
• Network Effects Enable Massive Wealth Creation
• One Way of Increasing Market Share
• Offer Surprisingly Good Customer Service
• Create Value and Keep Some of It
• How Stardards Affect Markets
• Better to Make a Few Users Love You than a Lot Ambivalent
• One Perspective on Business's Success and Failures