Not every thought can be expressed in 140 characters
Paul Carr defends long articles on the web:
Sometimes I write long. I really don’t care if the Internet is supposed to be limited to 140 badly punctuated characters of nothingness or one-note blog posts designed to leave a tsetse fly with ADD wanting more. For every comment I see complaining about the length of this column, I will add an extra 100 words to the following week’s installment. Believe me when I say this is a battle that I will win.
Jakob Nielsen used to argue that people only wanted to read short articles on the web. And yet, his description of how people read web pages exactly matches the way I read the print version of the New York Times:
A key finding is that most website users don’t read all your words. Instead, they scan the text and pick out headlines, highlighted words, bulleted lists, and links. Scanning is even more prevalent for readers of email newsletters.
Too many of the articles in the New York Times offer boring opinions and occasionally interesting facts, which is why I end up scanning it, instead of reading it. But my attitude is different when it comes to my favorite weblogs. I’ve read many fascinating essays on weblogs. And some of them are long. Complex thoughts can not be expressed in 140 characters. I appreciate Paul Carr’s slam against Twitter.