Commenting on an interview with Newsweek editor Jon Meacham by journalism students at the University of Mississippi, MrMagazine talked about a few of his comments.
The one I wanted to center on was in talking about the length of copy online visitors are willing to take the time to read.
Meacham said, "people do not read long form on the internet. 500 words is the max." I agree with that assessment as far as when talking about general topics.I do believe that it isn't as accurate when talking about niche topics though.
When I come across something that is within my group of serious interests, I will definitely scan it quickly to see if it fits into something I want to read. If it does, 
the length of copy online doesn't matter to me as long as it's reasonable.
Like Meacham said concerning the equivalent of 4,000 words in a Newsweek magazine article, "it takes eight pages on the web.” And something would have to be very interesting and relevant to our interests to read that far into something online.
Another thing I see in this is that if people are using our content for resource material, I would think that longer articles would also be appropriate.
I'm bringing this up to show that there can never be one set of rules that applies to every situation. If you were to follow Meacham's rule of 500 words max, for the most part you wouldn't go wrong. But for those that want deeper insight and have more interest, it wouldn't be enough.
Niches need longer articles mixed with some shorter ones that people can snack on when they're in a hurry. Each of us needs to experiment and try different things while soliciting feedback from our readers.
One size definitely doesn't fit all, even in the attention-deficit online world.
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