Reeling in Web surfers with punchy teasers

The tight, quick-hit messaging style of the Web - text message, link, list, tweet - has brought us a renaissance of the teaser, the come-hither that snags the eyeballs and gets the roving Web reader to stop and click to new pages, new experiences. Everyone wants "stickiness" - the ability to get the promiscuous, fruit-fly-attention-span Web user to linger.  

How? The teaser: The short word-string that creates a mystery to clear up, a need to satisfy. Sometimes a single word is all it takes, as in TMZ's misleading "MLB Hall of Famer Carlton Fisk Pleads Guilty to Corny DUI." How could a DUI be "corny"? Click to find out! (He passed out in his truck in a cornfield.) 

The basics. Many teasers are just headlines, as from the Associated Press: "Woman set on fire in LA as she sleeps on bench." There's also the time-honored cliff-hanger, as Time gave us in "And the best movie of 2012 is . . . "

Lists and galleries. Lists (like the one above) are intrinsically intriguing, as at year's end, when rearview mirrors get a lot of looks.

On the nugatory side, Funnypik runs "30 Most Hideous Examples of Wardrobe Malfunctions," which shovels you over to a huge Style Bistro slide show of same. HuffPost dangles "7 Ways to start having sex again" or "41 Political Photos That Had Us Laughing, Crying And Everything in Between in 2012." And of course the New Yorker has to do it bigger, better, and more, with "The Hundred Best Lists of All Time."

Lists often lead to a gallery or slide show, common means of getting you to hang out. Slide shows can be rewarding; you can learn a great deal in a few clicks. Nick Kostora creates an extravaganza for the Bleacher Report, titled "The fastest player in the history of each NFL franchise," a truly epic time-suck, with profiles of Bob Hayes, Isaac Curtis, Devin Hester, and other turf-scorchers, complete with vids of them scampering past everyone for TDs.

But tell no lies: Many slide shows are on-purpose clunky, slow to load, and bad to use, with all sorts of gluck and glark to make you stay. If you're as stupid as I am, and I am, you do stay, trying to fight your way through, to see, I dunno, the top 10 tallest LGTB medical device inspectors in Azerbaijan.

Involve yourself. Many teasers invite the eyeball-owner to join in, involve her- or himself. Guess is an important imperative verb, as in "Guess who reportedly walked Kate Winslet down the aisle at her secret wedding" (Leo DiCaprio did; she married Ned Rocknroll).

"Guess This Star - From Behind!" is a People mag come-on for a slide show that's also a multiple-choice game, promising minutes of fun for not the whole family.

You'll never guess challenges your skills, as in the Toronto Globe and Mail's "You'll never guess what Canadian artist outsold John Lennon" (in U.S. album sales - if you guessed Anne Murray, you're right!) (you did not either guess that).

More aggressive is We dare you, as in this teaser, from Chicago site the Blaze: "We Dare You Not to Get a Little Emotional Watching This 7th Grade Wrestling Vid." We dropped a tear.

What do you think? is a related gambit. The Bloomberg Business Schools tell us that media/sports billionaire "Mark Cuban says an MBA degree is a waste of money. What do you think?" Before you can decide, you have to click to the web page to get the full dish on Cuban's opinion.

The Newseum in Washington tweets: "The New York Post front page is generating a lot of Twitter activity this morning. What do you think?" You'll have to click to see the Post fiscal-cliff cover - of a woman in Santa Cruz, Calif., jumping off a precipice, with the headline This fall is really going to hurt."

The snark. This is a different school of piranhas. We hear/read a diss; we want to know who's dissing whom and how come. When Makeup.com runs the teaser "Makeup Trends That Still Haven't Died. Why? Why? Why?" they're being snarky at the expense of . . . whom? We must find out. It's those who still do talon nails, pastel eye shadow, frosty lipstick and other so-over facial fashion faux pas. We become accomplices in the diss, superiors to the dummies who still do such things to their faces.

The Gloss flashes a rare triple-diss with "The Kardashians Spent Thousands of Dollars on Tacky Designer [Germanic expletive] For Christmas (And Want You To Know.)" We look down on the K's for (a) wasting money; (b) having bad taste; and (c) flaunting both (a) and (b).

Against expectation. "Fiscal cliff would benefit some states?" (Kind of: If no deficit deal happens, fed estate taxes would bump up big-time, and the gov would share about three billion new bucks with 30 states.) Gawker startles us with "Many Christmases Ruined Because Gift Card Money Doesn't Cover Drugs" (gasp!).

Who, what, why, when. The W's make great teasers, Jeopardy! answers without the questions - for which you need to click. Salon offers "What conservatives taught us about women's bodies in 2012" (an acrid satire by Amanda Hess). Under the header " 'X Factor' Judge Getting Fired?" we read "Who producers just aren't happy with" (rumors say Britney Spears). And "Remember when January Jones ate her placenta?" Yes. So what?

HuffPost has "What we watched, read and said in 2012." AOL has "Why it's good to worry" (click to find out!). And how about "Photos: Mom gave birth where?" (The Holland Tunnel.)

A variation is the This hook, as in HuffPost's hilarious "This is the only way we want burritos delivered from now on" (by aerial drone!).

Thanks, perhaps, to its acquisition of HuffPost, one of the most florid teaser cultures in the world, AOL has created the four-part Monster Teaser, which often finishes with a Who/What tease:

(1) Photo - say, iconic, bubbly Marilyn Monroe;

(2) Startling Headline: "Monroe Had Ties to Communism?"

(3) Caption: "FBI files on Marilyn Monroe that couldn't be located earlier this year have finally been re-issued - and what they say may surprise you." Or maybe they won't, but then there's

(4) Who/What, Etc.: "What concerned government officials"

Click on any and be rushed to the HuffPost article, which says . . . the FBI was worried but couldn't find much.

Click here for more. Folks who run websites are in a bind. They have to persuade advertisers these sites can get people to come and stay.

But Web users, billions, flit from daisy to daisy, site to site, a dusting of pollen on their legs. Yet, and this is the pity, the Web is the richest cornucopia of wonderful things to see, hear, and read ever.

When people worry about the future of reading, they worry about just this - the proliferating garden of short-shot click-here grabbers. How will it all end? Here's what's astonishing. . . ..