I really want to read these. I do. (I’m halfway through the Razorfish one and it’s awesome.) These companies know what they’re talking about and have teams of extremely smart people pulling together ideas to share and make the industry a better place. But, in a world where I get much of my news in 140 character increments, it’s hard to find the time to read a 50+ page e-book in one sitting about social media, why people should engage, use Twitter, blog, etc… Sure, I can download it to my iPhone (or Kindle if I had one)and read it on my commute on the A train. I can also kill a few dozen trees and print it out to read. But in the end, I had to think: “0will I really put that time into reading this, and will I actually learn something from it?”

When will we not need the full books and just rely on hard hitting statements in short microblogging formats. For example, a 3 page description and research finding on why brands should be in social media can probably be represented in less than 140 characters: “It’s where your audience is” While this doesn’t provide additional evidence and supporting statements, it gets to the point. Maybe we can have both. A combination of defining these reports into a much shorter form version that we’re all used to. The short version would include bold statements about what the overall summary really includes. If you need more, you can get it. If not, then move on.

I think this could work. And, more people would read them. 50+ pages is still intimidating to some.

What do you think? Would you move to keep the more in depth reports or simple statement summaries to be released by these big agencies??

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