Headline + copy & maybe some art?

Point: Will audiences for emerging media want to scan headlines, then move onto copy and glance at art illustrating the stories? Perhaps not.

If media companies are going to keep their audiences, we believe they need to start experimenting with different content presentations. We don't mean simply yet more layouts that still have headlines and copy as the primary elements. Several years ago we consulted a predecessor to Google Images called Ditto.com. Our research revealed that the eye can pick up visual clues to intriguing media content topics via thumbnail photos much faster than by scanning headlines. We wondered why no media company has innovated with this concept.

Now this intriguing site called 10x10 is trying the idea. Every hour, the automated application creates a grid of 100 photos based on key words in the news. Clicking a thumbnail pops up linked headlines. The execution is not perfect (thumbnails are often too small and sometimes repeated too often in the same grid) but we admire the effort.


A better effort for zippy thumbnail scanning is Mooch Live. Click a square in the line at the bottom of the interface and new thumbnails slide quickly into view.