Wednesday, December 20, 2017

BREAKING NEWS: Internet headlines are Truncated

Ever notice how the news headlines, or titles of article that appear online, aren't long enough to actually tell you what the story is about? I think this MUST be intentional, because until you click on the story, Google - or whatever service you are viewing - gets no information about our interests. They make us click to actually view the content, driving traffic to the sites and stories we might otherwise avoid.

This isn't always the case, as we see in the Gizmodo article from my screencap, but it's still not very informative. The other three are perfect examples: Incomplete information about a takedown notice, American taxes, and humans outliving the universe (that last one is guessable). We are given 7-9 words to determine how to spend our time. It could easily be more, but it's not profitable to the providers to do that. They want our time and attention, because that's how they can sell ads. Actually providing news and information is only a secondary concern.

I suppose this is just another reminder that if we aren't paying for the product, they WE ARE the product. It's not surprising, but it does get tiresome.