Writing for the Web: Is Anyone Reading?

I’m a writer who specializes in writing for the Web and I’m a reader. Lately, I feel like I’m going out of fashion. I feel like my grandmother who lived to be 100 years old and could no longer find comfortable shoes. Her feet had conformed to a certain heel height and shoe width sometime during the first 60 years of her life. Shoe makers stopped making it–no market.

Dorothea's Closet Vintage

My favorite print magazines that I subscribe to and receive on paper are growing slimmer. I’ve noticed shorter stories in the New York Times Magazine, a lot less text in Entertainment Weekly, and even the New Yorker is starting to feel a bit slim. I enjoy essays in long form. There is only so much you can say in 140 characters or in a video. Even books today are increasingly an excuse for getting on the Jon Stewart or some other talk show to share your rant for 5 minutes.

I fear that one of these days I’ll wake up and there won’t be anything left to read with depth and reflection, something that can stand the test of time, developing a new idea (not just repeating a “trending” idea) that can withstand informed debate.

My hope is that the Kindle (and technologies like it) will reinvigorate the market for long-form essays and writing that builds ideas, that requires dedicated time to absorb and reflect upon, that encourages writers and readers to engage in a more meaningful dialogue than a Web page or a tweet can support.

My Web content writing style is to provide short, pithy text at the high level with increasingly detailed content as you click deeper into a Web site. If you click deeper, you should be rewarded with more content that takes the idea a step further with more specialized language that you learn in context to become better informed. Isn’t that how learning is supposed to work?

Raise your hand if you still like learning! Keep it up if you think sometimes you have to read more to learn!