Digital Snacking

I really like a good metaphor, especially ones where parallels can be drawn across many facets of the topic. The other day I found this post by David Armano that talks about the snacking type behaviour of people today with digital media. His post is an offshoot of an article in Wired called Manifesto for the new Age, however I like how he digs deeper into this idea of snacking discussing 3 aspects of snacking as it relates to consuming digital content:

1. Is snacking all day bad for us?
2. Do we have time for "full meals" anymore?
3. Are we sacrificing depth for breadth?

A great post and something to think about regardless of if you are the one snacking or the one offering the food to the customers. If we are becoming a snacking economy, as a business how does that impact the way you market, advertise, deliver content, and communicate with your customers? As David points out as in the real world its about finding/delivering healthy snacks that taste good.

As an aside, #3 got me thinking about my post yesterday on Twitter. Twitter becomes the ultimate bite sized snack. Whether good or bad, people are often sacrificing depth for breadth, but the question is will twitter turn out to be simply junk food or will it evolve into a very small but healthy snack if your taste so desires?