Maybe the world is moving faster than ever, maybe people just have shorter attention spans, or maybe something that takes too long gives the audience the time to daydream about what they'd rather be doing.
Whether it's a presentation, movie, wedding toast, commencement speech, blog entry, news article, or a meeting, less is usually more. I don't understand why people feel that a certain time period or length is necessary for anything. Remember when a book report or term paper had to be x number of words or pages? Unless the express purpose is to have fun, I think there should be an effort to abbreviate whenever possible.
Some industries and people and industries get it, others don't. Some examples and exceptions:
Music - most of the Beatles songs were shorter than three minutes. The long ones were usually the worst on the album (see Sgt. Pepper and Abbey Road).
Newspapers - USA Today usually has the highest circulation. Most stories are short.
Sports - Fans can tolerate a long football game but baseball not so much.
Movies - People will still sit through a long movie if it's great. If it's not then 90 minutes is a good length.
Photography - How to get viewers to focus and pay attention to your photo.
At the risk of going on too long I better stop now!
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