A Premium on Long Form Content?

Most of the content we consume online is "snackable." It's bite-sized and easy to consume. Buzzfeed has mastered this approach with their highly visual and list-based posts. Circa has taken this approach with mobile news, breaking down top news stories into brief summaries that are easy to scan on your phone.

Does it mean that long-form content is dying? I don't think so.

Just look at what Jeff Bezos added to his shopping cart this last week with the Washington Post. Newspapers are on a death watch by most but Bezos isn't dumb. He has some trick up his sleeve. Judging by a few comments and his memo to the Washington Post staff, I think he values in-depth and high quality long form content. I don't think we're going to see more longer form articles and posts but do believe we'll see more value being put into longer content.

Snack time is winding down

Look at Medium. It's a new blogging service that values the written word in a longer form. Not photos or GIFs, not memes but actual complete sentences and paragraphs. Ironically, this is a platform created by co-creators of Twitter - arguably the pioneers of bite-sized content.

Think about food. Snacks are great. They're convenient. They take little to no effort to make or consume. Over the long haul, it's not healthy. Sometimes you need to dig deeper and have something more quality. Something healthier or better prepared. For that, you pay a premium for - but it's worth it. I think online content will take the same shape.

Search engines favor it. Medium is reinventing it. Jeff Bezos is literally banking on it. I think there's going to be a market for long form content in the future. We're slammed with lots of content snacks and that will never end. We're always going to need bits of information quickly.

I see quality content with depth will see a comeback. I think it'll just look different than what we're used to.

What do you think? What does the future of the written word look like?