{"id":131807,"date":"2010-01-03T12:00:48","date_gmt":"2010-01-03T17:00:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gigaom.com\/?p=88667"},"modified":"2010-01-03T12:00:48","modified_gmt":"2010-01-03T17:00:48","slug":"how-the-internet-changed-writing-in-the-2000s","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/131807","title":{"rendered":"How the Internet Changed Writing in the 2000s"},"content":{"rendered":"
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In a famous passage<\/a> from Ulysses<\/em>, James Joyce recapitulates the development of the English language in 45 pages — from the archaic and formal (\u201cDeshil Holles Eamus\u201d) to the conversationally casual (\u201cPflaap! Pflaap! Blaze on\u201d). Over the past decade, as more people have spent more time writing on the Internet, that same evolution has not only continued, it feels like it’s accelerated.<\/p>\n

With so much discussion about how the Internet is changing journalism and media, there’s surprisingly little said about how writing itself has transformed. But it has changed in a dramatic if subtle way.<\/p>\n

Nine years ago, I remember being one of 100 or so journalists gathered to listen to a veteran writer speak. I don\u2019t remember the topic, just that when he asked how many of us enjoy writing, I was surprised that only a few hands went up. Today, so much of the typical day is taken up with writing emails, tweets, updates, text messages, chat sessions, blog posts and the occasional longer form writing. And few complain how onerous it all is.<\/p>\n

On balance, all of that practice is making online writing better. Which is not to say that all online writing is good. Much of it\u2019s terrible \u2013 see the average YouTube comment<\/a> for an example of how bad<\/a> it can be. But it’s been said that excellent writing is a matter of\u00a0good thinking<\/a> \u2013 if you\u2019ve got the thinking part down, that\u2019s most of the battle. And many of the thoughtful people I know are producing some great stuff on the web.<\/p>\n

The Internet isn\u2019t just prompting us to write more, its open structure pressures us to write in a way that’s at once more concise and flexible. One problem newspapers and magazines never could fix is that articles are assigned arbitrary lengths. Pay writers per word and they\u2019ll write as many as they can. Assign a 12,000-word story and you\u2019ll get just that, even if 1,000 are all that\u2019s necessary.<\/p>\n

On the web it\u2019s different. Back in 1997, Jakob Nielsen looked at how people read web content (basically, they scan it<\/a>) and argued web writing should<\/p>\n