Resistance Is Futile. More after the jump.

One of Media Mandible’s countless readers wrote in with helpful feedback suggesting that I use a “more inside” feature to break up the posts a bit, to avoid the “sea of text” feeling. Fortunately, the WordPress text editor comes with a button that does this for you (“Insert More tag”).

As you can see (scroll down), it does make the blog appear more readable. What’s interesting, though, is that it actually makes each entry take longer to read. Now you have to click to get the rest of the article. Previously, you didn’t.

This is exactly the way that (effective) interactive advertising works. Instead of giving you the hard, obvious sell up front (“Click here and get $5 off now!”), a good banner will give you a soft sell on something that’s less of a commitment, and more entertaining (“Mouse over the box to see what’s inside!”). If the stakes are low, and your curiosity is aroused, you’ll do it.

photo by jaxed