Trenton, ON — The style of information processing in humans depends a lot on the medium of communication. Marshall McLuhan's "medium is the massage" [Ed. original publication of the concept used the word 'massage', he later changed it to 'message'] may be truer than we care to admit.
We humans allocate certain amount of time to different media.
Speaking of cognitive style of information extraction, "we humans allocate certain amount of time to read the newspaper, another time slot for magazines, television, and books", said John Kumpunen, president and CEO of KRIN.communications, Ontario-based multimedia communication and production company.
"Joe Average spends about 49 minutes reading the newspaper, gives television 2.2 hours out of the day. At work and at home, Joe surfs about three and a half hours a day on internet, visiting 151 sites a month, and Joe gives your web page about 58.5 seconds.” said Mr. Kumpunen.
Women want to know what's on TV, men want to know what else is on TV... it's the same style of information processing with the web.
"In contrast to the traditional information sources, the internet is a relatively new kind of overload of information where web site visitors have millions of pages offered to them and moving from site to another is a simple click. Carlton University study suggests that humans are able to judge the web site "look and feel" in 50 milliseconds. A blink is about 100 milliseconds.
As a result, the attention span on the web is measured in seconds. And unless the surfer is looking for specific information—cure for a medical problem ... a new mate ... a new pick-up truck ... or Loretta Lynn biography ... chances are that you will not spend many seconds or minutes at a particular web site."
If we consider spending hours with a book acceptable, what would happen if we mix metaphors and present information on the web in a form a page-turner book?
"What we wanted to create is a visual communication tool that is very familiar as a visual metaphor (of a page-turning publication), allows the use of well-rehearsed cognitive / visual skills (accessing information from printed pages), that does not necessarily call for reading glasses, does not require scrolling or losing the visitors to spontaneous clicks to available links from the web site visitor", continued Mr. Kumpunen.
What started as an experiment at KRIN.communications, the online RVTVMagazine seemed like the perfect tool for certain target audiences. "We are talking to a group of individuals—the booming RV market—with median age somewhere around 50. The population at that age has significant presbyopia (need for bifocal eyeglasses)". By keeping the font sizes large and aiming for target monitor resolution of 1024x768 pixels we believe the flash book and magazine concept is "breath of old familiarity" into the dizzying pace of energy-zapping web sites.
Cool and flexible ... and probably as impactful for a longer presentation as internet video but much more cost effective.
"The fresh aspect of the digital delivery is of course the additional materials you can add to your book", said Mr. Kumpunen, "each page can be tagged to an audio file be it narration for the page, additional information, or simply music."
"Imagine a reading a book of poetry where the author reads the page with the intonation and inflections, he or she originally heard in the mind while writing it." "There is a huge market for narrated children's books where the printed page merges with narration and sound effects." "Or take a common album of wedding memories, a picture book with the sound of the ceremony that can be shared with family and relatives overseas."
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