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Websumer noun. A person who indiscriminately consumes information obtained via the World Wide Web.

Example Citation:
"It would be OK if students saw the Internet as a delivery channel for information resources of various quality. But they don't. They are 'Websumers' — to them the Internet is a one stop shopping place where you can get information, even if you can't (or don't) distinguish between partial vs. complete, authoritative vs. dubious, biased vs. unbiased, old vs. current, or accurate vs. in accurate information."
—D. Scott Brandt, "Beyond 'Websumerism'," Computers in Libraries, May 1, 2001

Notes:
Today's word is a ham-fisted blend of "Web" and "consumer," thus continuing the trend of ugly lexical constructions for Web-based phenomena. Other examples that we've seen here in the past are "Web-isode," "Webology," and "Webrarian" (although the latter isn't so bad since the "b" in Web fits well with the "b" in "lib" (librarian).

Related Words:
multi-channel shopping
prosumer
Webrarian

Subject Categories:
Computers - Internet
Sociology - People

Posted on May 23, 2001 at 9:48 PM
Updated on May 23, 2001 at 9:48 PM


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