The wonderful Leslie O'Flahavan gave a great presentation/workshop the other day about web trends and how they affect web writing. You can <a href="http://ewriteonline.com/uncategorized/2014/10/how-web-design-trends-are-changing-the-way-we-write-content/" target="_blank">download it here</a>. Some of these trends include infinite scrolling (like on the Time Magazine website, where you can just keep scrolling) and the large-type front page (like this, on this page with <a href="https://medium.com/@penguinrandomus/a-to-x-writing-advice-courtesy-of-copy-chief-benjamin-dreyer-c00bd746b99e" target="_blank">A to X Writing Advice)</a>.  There's also a trend to include pre-made shareable content (or pre-written tweets).

Then there is the need (this is <em>not</em> a trend) to have everything visible and rendering appropriately on any device you happen to be using--desktop, laptop, tablet or smartphone. How people access a website has to be considered. Type has to be readable. Although these issues are solvable by good design and web architecture, web writers have to consider these when deciding how to present which information.

Clearly, there is a lot to keep track of when you are writing for the web, where most of us turn to daily. Since most every business, nonprofit and news organization is on the web, web/content writing is probably the largest type of writing being done today.

Can just anybody write for the web? Not really. I think people can be taught how to write for the web, but not everybody has the ability to be like Leslie and be able to see what is going on in web design, spot trends and realize how these new changes affect web content.

1. Ability to spot the trends

2. Ability to write in short and long formats

3. Ability to synthesize information

4. Visual and design sensibility

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