Content is King! Hallelujah!
Presenting too much information can fog your message and distract from your key point. It is important for online communicators to understand the behavior of Internet and email users. Although Google has digitized War and Peace, most people won’t consume such large chunks of content online. Internet and email users scan content quickly hoping to find relevance. Very few people will sit at their computer to read an entire work of literature. Most Internet users like information in neat, usable chunks. We simply don’t have the time to read a novel in the middle of our busy day.
Don’t bury your key message(s) unnecessarily in an online manifesto. Give your audience the information they need. No more, no less.
I would write more, but I want to keep this brief!
Right on Zach. Good luck in Hong Kong. Send a postcard!
Well said, Tom! I totally am one of the scanner-not-reader types.. If I can’t get the pertinent information out of a post, newsletter, whatever, in under 30 seconds — unless, of course, it is specifically a topic I am interested in — I generally speaking will keep on browsing. There is simply too much stuff to read on these internetz!
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No TJ, that’s cool. There are extremes on both sides. The IM community takes online communication to another extreme. They want u n me 2 do dis.
There is a happy balance between War and Peace and
I personally err on the side of long, but I’m working on it!
brilliant point. We are told in business that extensive, prose-like reports are a thing of the past. Managers and executives want one or two pages of bulletized information. Short, brief, relevant. You can follow it by 20 pages of indexes and appendices for those who are really interested, but you better keep those reports brief and to the point.
Online surfers are the same. you can call it “short attention span”, but this doesn’t change anything. People are busy, and they want quick info at their fingertips.
See, I already blew it. . . way too long for a comment, nobody is going to read this.
Wow…Glad to have this critical information now… only, wish I’d have read this months ago. (^__^) Could have saved myself the writing of at least million words… (Not to mention all those yawns out there
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It’s a tough one. Technology makes accessing information so easy, but consuming the information is still so much tastier without it at times. Think about reading a good book, listening to live music at an intimate venue, or watching an epic film at the cinema.
I think that the key is to use technology appropriately to deliver messages (in any form). That means adapting our message for the platform. Internet and email users generally look for the core of relevance and meaning quickly, pushing all of the extraneous stuff to the side. Our goal, as modern communicators is to respond effectively to our audience. To that end, we should strive to reduce the amount of extraneous stuff that our audience has to push aside and get the content they want in the most efficient possible way.
True I suppose. But I think I would be willing to read on a tablet.
I’m the same way Orikinla; after a page of online content, I’m rubbing my eyes. This is where the evolution of digital audio will come into play.
But, you know what? It will take some serious technological advances to match the quality of sitting beside a warm fire with a good book resting in your hands
I cannot read novels online. Except, I will read a page a day.
So, I will spend three years to read Leo Tolstoy’s “War and Peace”.