Meet the "supersonic" reader

[editorsweblog] Mario Garcia is one of the world’s leading newspaper designers and he was a speaker at the 2004 World Newspaper Advertising Conference & Expo organised in Amsterdam, Netherlands by the World Association of Newspapers: "The influence of the internet on newspaper design cannot be underestimated." Mr Garcia said. "It used to be, a person gave the page a 25-second look-over. That is now reduced to 10 seconds. Ten seconds -- that’s how much time they use to determine where to go. But there are now readers who are even faster than the scanner -- Mr Garcia called them "supersonic" readers, generally 18- to 20-years old, who see nothing but pictures and 100-point type."

"There are two revolutions in newspapers, tremendously influenced by the internet. One is navigation -- you cannot have a newspaper that doesn't include a summary that tells you what to read if you only have five to seven minutes. The second is positioning of advertising... We are dealing with the multitasker -- a reader who can obviously do several things simultaneously -- he has difficulty doing things one at a time... We must learn to create ads aimed at the multitasker. It will be a difficult task." "Silent ads (...) pop up in places where you don't expect the advertisement to appear. They're integrated into the design of the newspaper. They're labeled as advertising, they don't jump at you or break away from the colour palette of the newspaper."

With the advent of RSS aggregation, I can only imagine that this trend will increase massively in the next few years.
I follow more than 200 news feeds a day (blogs, news, websites) which represent more than 1000 info items a day. Before RSS, I had time to read at least 10-20 articles a day, now it is a surprise when I have time or focus to finish 5... I hover and jump...

How about you? Are you a multitasker? A "supersonic" readers?
How many feeds do you subscribe to, how has it modified your daily routine?

More on Mario Garcia coming soon.