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NPR and Tina Brown talking about this piece got me thinking.. What are we going to do when 90 seconds is all we get to communicate our messages?
According to Michael Kinsley in The Atlantic
One reason seekers of news are abandoning print newspapers for the Internet has nothing directly to do with technology. It’s that newspaper articles are too long. On the Internet, news articles get to the point. Newspaper writing, by contrast, is encrusted with conventions that don’t add to your understanding of the news. Newspaper writers are not to blame. These conventions are traditional, even mandatory.
The piece goes on to explain why the traditional newspaper style that I was taught by my parents and mentors back in the 1970s, doesn't work any more. Ya Think?
I did a mini survey on Twitter this week to ask people how long a video they would watch. The average answer was 90 seconds.
And how many of us have sat in meetings hammering out messages and strategies that require a 10 page document to explain?
I tell my audiences all the time that if they can't fit their messages into 140 characters they can't get them across. But what does this mean for measurement?
- The importance of a "visibility" metric is more important than ever. For years we've urged clients not to put much weight in a mention that appears at the end of a long article or posting. This is more true than ever before.
- This makes human coding more important, since most automated systems don't have ways to figure out where or how prominent a mention is. Who cares if your mentions are trending positive, if no one will ever see them?
- It makes short impactful videos more valuable and memorable than long ones. So does that minor mention at the end of 5 minute video matter at all? I"d argue not at all.
Much of the arguement around the Weighted Media Cost metric isthat when you factor in the part of the article that is "owned" by the company being mentioned, it affects the correlations to outcomes. Based on Kinsley and my mini-video survey I have no doubt that this is true. In fact I think one might argue that that is WHY the correlations are better with WMC -- not because of the actual media costs themselves but because this research took into account what I call the prominence/dominance factor.
The lingering question is, should we even include in any of our measurement, those endless articles that only get to the point in paragraph 6 and only mention your brand in paragraph 12? Probably not.
Thanks Katie.
No one likes a rambler who enjoys hearing themselves. This is why I like coming to your blog, it gets to the point. Blogging is worse than someone on a rant, because you can't tune it out. Keep up the "to the point" work!
Posted by: Promotional Products | February 15, 2010 at 11:03 AM
Thanks Robin -- Here's the link again http://www.instituteforpr.org/files/uploads/A_New_Paradigm_JeffriesFox.pdf
Posted by: KDPaine | February 12, 2010 at 05:02 PM
BTW Katie, the WMC link at the end of the post doesn't work.
Posted by: Robin Browne | February 12, 2010 at 04:54 PM
Hi Katie,
I left this comment before but it didn't show up so here it is again.
Kinsley's "newspaper stories are too long" explanation is too simplistic. I suspect many people are like me: they'll read or print something long, even very long, off the net if it is all valuable content. On the flip side, some of the shortest content is now found in free daily papers catering to razor thin commuter attention spans.
Posted by: Robin Browne | February 12, 2010 at 04:51 PM
I agree with this analysis - it's unlikely that I'll watch any video longer than 1-2 minutes. However, if I find a news article very interesting and informative, I can read it forever. Since we are so inundated with media today, an initial short and sweet message followed by a longer, in-depth one for those who are interested is the best bet.
Posted by: John S | February 11, 2010 at 11:45 AM
Hyperlinking to what? Another Internet piece, or something that some ink-stained dinosaur wrote that was too long to read? I'd like to see stats on rate of click-throughs in that type of circumstance. We are a short-attention-span-theater kind of people these days. Did you see @billsledzik's piece?
http://bit.ly/9fX4gt
Posted by: Sean Williams | February 10, 2010 at 10:46 AM
I think you miss the whole advantage of hyperlinks. Internet articles can get to the point, but provide context via hyperlinks to other articles.
Posted by: KDPaine | February 10, 2010 at 09:53 AM
Katie, thought-provoking as usual, mon cher amie.
I worry about this trend, and not just from the professional perspective.
We are, as a people, losing our ability to carefully consider complex information. There is no context in 140 characters, no ability to represent opposing views or build toward a logical conclusion. There is just opinion.
We're talking to ourselves and people who agree with us, not to a wide variety of readers. This has the tendency to reinforce opinions and preconceptions rather than challenge them.
"Internet articles" may get to the point, but they assume that readers already have context and background. Newspaper articles (NYT, WSJ) may be guilty of the reverse, assuming that the reader knows nothing, but at least they're offering a more complete picture.
(I realize that political considerations may lead to different conclusions about the newspapers I've mentioned.)
Where do you see learning, education and all in this new mix, especially when the latest Trust Barometer shows a slide in trust of one's peers?
Posted by: Sean Williams | February 10, 2010 at 09:32 AM