Love this topic... mostly because I really dig teaching those new folks how to get started, and yeah, lots of times they're like deer in headlights.

We tend to explain it just like this:

"WordPress is like a house. What's a house for? You want it keep all your best stuff, and what's important to you, and you want to be a place where your friends are welcome to come and visit. To do that, we have to lay a good foundation first, just like building a house.

And, just like building a house, as we build this WordPress website we have to have some land. Your WordPress website is going to live on some land called, "HOSTING," just like your house has to have piece of land of its own. Hosting is really just a fancy way of saying a special computer that holds the files and database that comprises your WordPress website. That special computer is called a server. So your server will be owned by your hosting company. Here are a few hosting companies we recommend... x, y, z.

Once you have land for your new house (or uh, WordPress website, if you will), you'll need a street address for that house. 421 Main Street. In internet speak, that street address tells people where the land is where you'll build your house, is called a DOMAIN (you might know a domain as www.cnn.com or www.meetup.com). So you'll need to purchase a DOMAIN that will tell people, "This DOMAIN looks to that HOSTING company to find the WORDPRESS website." A couple of good places to buy domains are x,y,z.

Now that you've got your land, and street address, you'll want a mailbox that matches your street address so you can get RSVP's after you've invited everyone to your housewarming, right? So be sure to create an EMAIL ADDRESS that matches your domain (you@yourdomain.com) (and here we typically open up CPanel or GMail or whatever and create an actual email address so they can see how to do that).

Land, street address, mailbox... What's missing? Oh yeah! The house!

So you can use lots of contractors to build a house, right? (Name some really pro ones in your area). Creating websites is the same way. Joomla, Drupal, straight HTML, Dreamweaver, are all examples of software programs you can use to create a website. Of course, you're here to learn how to build a house with WordPress. So let's do that.

(At this point, you can either walk them through installing the 5 minute install), or install with a host's one-click. It's not poison! I walk people through the one-click install, but show them where to get instructions for the 5 minute install if they're adventurous. And for most beginners, they're not there to learn the self-install way, they're there to get to publishing).

Once WordPress is installed, we explain that just like a house, our initial WordPress installation is a starter home. Themes allow you change the interior design of your home/website, and in some way, how you interact with the content of your home, while plugins allow you to extend the functionality of your home - like adding an extra room or a pool.

We also explain (both in the beginning and at this point, the difference between WordPress.com and WordPress.org. WordPress.org is like buying your home - and that's why you need to get the land and address for it yourself. WordPress.com is like renting - the land is provided for you, and even an address if you want to keep it. And, like renting, you'll be kind of limited in what you can and can't do, but like renting, the landlord is great and takes care of all the basics (and then some). If you think you want to add a pool, though... you gotta buy (and throw in some examples of what that might look like with the extended functionality of WordPress.org vs. .com).

At this point, we've got land, an address that points to that land, a mailbox, and a house that is ready for guests. Now, we can start filling that home with the stuff that really makes a home a home... the CONTENT that will make our guests want to come back time and time again."

We've found people really connect with this analogy. It takes a little while to explain, but it's solid and I think takes away the fear of all these terms that can be really overwhelming to beginners. (The Hosting, Domains, and Install are half the battle, IMO).

As for post formats, pages/posts, categories, etc... you can't explain all that in one sitting or meetup (a series of videos, of course). I think people shouldn't expect you to, and you can't allow people to expect you to, either. Being clear at Meetups that newbies WON'T understand all there is to know in one or two or even three meetings is really important.

End rambling.