With sleep hangovers, a balky connection today, and thus a need to “anticipate” a refresh may finally load a page, the mules have decided that two items rise above a crowd of reasons why old media is circling the drain.
1. Pulp-n-Mordor media editors demand a word count be met.
Guessing why: who would plunk $17.99 at the airport newsstand for a 10-page copy of The Atlantic?
Hint: the mules would, if it contained all the real information found in the 200-page edition and takes 5% as long to read, if not digest.
If you just have to please advertisers because you worry Washington won’t throw $500B at you if you look wobbly, put a 150-page supplement inside the front cover we can throw away easily. Thanks.
2. Online old-new media sorts demand a word count be met.
Guessing why: It looks “more natural” to paginate an article into five ad layouts, err, pages, if it is not 67 words long.
Hint: everyone leaves on page one or two, even if it is well-written. Inertia is a powerful thing, don’t break it unless your ad impressions are more important than your credibility and message.
Good journalists state 90% of what they have to say in the first paragraph and about 9% of the rest before you begin tabs 2-3-4-5.
Put the entire article on one page unless you’re using AJAX or related so there’s zero delay, and even then, don’t make next-page link ridiculously small – hooves are clumsy mouse drivers.
