Reading online: Reading, but not 'in a line'.

Something I was reading the other day seemed relevant to anyone concerned with writing for an online audience. There's a debate about the relative merits of reading online as contrasted with reading books. A series of articles in the New York times discusses this at length. One of them makes the point that:

Clearly, reading in print and on the Internet are different. On paper, text has a predetermined beginning, middle and end, where readers focus for a sustained period on one author’s vision. On the Internet, readers skate through cyberspace at will and, in effect, compose their own beginnings, middles and ends.

Writers need to be aware of this and think of it as an opportunity, or at least a challenge. Online writing needs to be extra "sticky" if we want our audience to stay for the maximum time - but at the same time, we need to see the reading experience from their point of view and provide richness of context, and not be afraid to offer links to other material that enhances our own words.