Short or long? Can we have both?

noreply@blogger.com (Juls Barnes) — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 10:04:00 +0000

There's been two very different stories this week both centered around the issue of size (I'll try and avoid any cheap jokes).

In today's ever increasingly fast paced world, where we all struggle to keep up with consuming what ever media takes our fancy; be it new music via Hype Machine or Digital developments via Google Reader, the trend has been to try and shorten everything into manageable bite size pieces.

The starter for ten obviously leading this trend was Facebook comments, then Twitter, the URL shorteners added to this, competing to get URLs down to as few characters as possible: j.mp now claiming the current prize for providing the shortest URLs (see Marketing Pilgram article for more info).

But where is this all taking us? Is this a good thing that has greater effects aside from enabling us to digest more information?

Earlier in the week a parody tool emerged, called Woofer; done as a side project by Jointhecompany, it calls itself a macro blogging tool, only allowing Woofs over 1,400 characters. Up for trying most things out I gave it a go and after getting over the 'what do I write about' issue I found myself realising:

- How enjoyable it was actually thinking about what I was writing, rather than the almost throwaway nature of posts on Twitter and simply sharing an article on Google Reader.

- That the art of writing, something I'd not done properly since University about four years ago, is something although not naturally, I do enjoy and miss.

Here's the article I wrote: Why I don't do Apple

So with all the trends towards smaller and faster are we losing certain values? Does it matter? Will the short and long form happily co-exist?

Hopefully this has at least got you thinking about how you write, in whichever channels you choose to communicate and how their size limitations have changed your language and craft.

Standing on the verge of getting it on

Short or long? Can we have both?