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TL;DR OK - I'm joking (sort of). I do think it's telling that he finishes the article with this: "Clearly, the average visitor won't make it too far through

TL;DR OK - I'm joking (sort of). I do think it's telling that he finishes the article with this: "Clearly, the average visitor won't make it too far through most of my articles. But I've consciously targeted a small, elite readership with a firm commitment to usability. If you target a broader audience or have sales cycles that are shorter than 5 years, you'd be wise to put your word count on a strict diet." I think this actually says more than the pretty graphs and statistical dissection. Know your target audience. And for most of us, our target audience has a very short attention span. From his second graph, it looks like the sweet spot is a bit under 100 words. Yikes!

bootload 18y ago
"... From his second graph, it looks like the sweet spot is a bit under 100 words ..." Maybe this is why Amazon wanted their book reviews under 100 words. With all the data they gather it's possible Amazon examined this metric. In "Amazonia" a book by *James Marcus" the first question Bezos asked Marcus was, "what's your GPA?" then "how quickly can you do a (mini-review) book review". Which happened to be on or under 100 words ~ http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A22101-2004Jul1.html http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A22101-2004Jul...