The long and the short of it

In a post on Monday, Tim O'Reilly wrote about the way that web publishing - and particularly the growth of blogging - is changing the way we create and deliver information.

In particular, O'Reilly notes the prevalence of short-form content, which suits the way we scan and skip through web content, and also lends itself to social production, or the collaborative creation of content.

The connection between short, modular and open - O'Reilly Radar

On Rough Type, Nicholas Carr responds to O'Reilly's piece, noting the danger posed by the short-form to the long-form (movies compared to Youtube clips):

"The new medium doesn't just promote the proliferation of small pieces; it devalues the long form. In fact, it doesn't even make room for big, extended works. It's actively biased against them, technologically and economically. More than that, though, it both reflects and reinforces our own increasing bias against anything that requires sustained attention or contemplation."

Honey, I shrunk the culture - Rough Type