Subject: Re: Stats From: Richard Layman Date: Fri, 6 Sep 1996 22:45:44 -0700 (PDT)
How the Web Was Won
Subject: Re: Stats From: Richard Layman Date: Fri, 6 Sep 1996 22:45:44 -0700 (PDT)
To: Joe Shea 
cc: Eric Meyer , online-news@planetarynews.com
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On Fri, 6 Sep 1996, Joe Shea wrote:
[edited]
> ....Does anyone know of another daily e-mail
> publication that eschews links in general and also requires scrolling. You
> may know that a paper that requires scrolling will therefore require a
> reader to spend a far longer time with it.  ...

Not necessarily true.  

I find that with e-papers/e-newsletters (American Reporter and TELECOM
Digest, e.g.) that because they provide a table of contents, I scan the
TOC and pick out the articles that I'm interested in, and I use the search
function in my mail program to go directly to the articles I want to read
based on the 8 word or so description provided, rejecting the rest. 
Usually I get to the specific articles by using a keyword from the article
title, rather than the "+" or say "From:" which denotes each "article" in
a newsletter created from separate email messages. 

I do this because scrolling is time consuming (note that I don't do email 
offline, being somewhat archaic, and not worrying about the clock since I 
have a flat rate account).

This is different from how I read newspapers, which is to turn each page
of most sections -- some sections I may skip entirely depending on the day
(e.g. classifieds, sports, stock tables, Sunday Style section etc.)
Granted, after I determine what's on the printed page, I don't necessarily
read the articles on the specific page either -- but it gets more of a
chance than the articles I skip online.  (Most magazines I read similarly. 
However, with some magazines I rely on the table of contents and choose
articles accordingly, i.e., with the New Yorker, because I just don't have
enough time to read most of an entire issue.)

Nonetheless, compared to an email newspaper, I end up scanning and reading
more articles in the printed newspaper because it's faster to turn a page
than it is to go back and forth with the day's index or than it is to
scroll through text online. 

I feel the same way about Web newspapers.  It can take so long to load an
article depending on the connection (i.e., Compuserve during the day is
molasses-like), that I only go to Webpapers for stuff I can't find in the
printed edition, because I want to use the archive to find an article,
because I might not normally have access to the printed edition, etc.  
However, I tend not to visit many e-papers if I don't normally read their
printed edition.

Richard Layman
Computer Television Network
rllayman@netcom.com
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