Who exactly is 'excited' by your latest release?

I've seen it on tons of blogs, tweets and posts... "XYZ is so excited to announce the release of our new feature on our app...".  Heck, I've done the same with my own apps too, so I am just as guilty as anyone else.

But lets face it.  It is usually only the authors, designers and developers that get excited.  And why not? We spent hours/days/weeks building code from scratch, overcoming seemingly unsurmountable technical problems, tweaking, perfecting and polishing.  Of course we will be as excited as new parents are, to release our baby into the wild and get some validation for all that effort.

But consider the user's perspective.  Is 'excited' really the right word for them?  We actually asked a select group of our users over time, and I think the more apt emotion would be 'interested', followed closely by 'apprehensive', or 'doubt'.

You see - as the builder, you have already envisaged what your new features will be used for.  What they can achieve.  How they can be used for the betterment of humankind.  And that is great. You have it all road mapped in your mind.

But most of this takes place behind closed doors, with little or no buy in by the user.  Which is probably as it should be, if you want to focus on maximising your effort and minimising distractions.  After all, no one wants a horse designed by a committee.

What your users eventually see is something new that they have to learn.  Possibly it might be a thing that they could use, but then they wonder if they have the time to learn it and make it fit with their day to day operations.  Will they have to change the way they do things in order to make best use of it?

So perhaps we need to change the way we word new product or new feature announcements.  I certainly intend to do so moving forward.  What would be the best word choice?  Is 'proud' a better way to announce something new?  How do we get 'buy in' from the user to that they feel like they are a part of the journey, rather than just some surprised passer by who has to reel back when developers jump out of dark doorways and say "Boo, I'm so excited about this..."?

I look forward to your thoughts and ideas.