Derek Powazek on his newly redesigned site (which is quite nice, and spotted via Cameron):

Page bottoms are the most valuable screen real estate there is. You read that right. All that nonsense about people not reading and not scrolling is complete bullshit.

Right on. I tend to (unscientifically) agree that people don't mind scrolling -- and, like Derek goes on to say, the people that do scroll are the ones that are truly interested in what's on the page. It's interesting food for thought.

Do marketing departments still live and die by "the fold"? Obviously, stuff that's visible without scrolling is, well.. visible. But I often fear that sidebars get ignored. If someone is reading a long, main column, and is completely engrossed in it, then they're probably apt to miss whatever's trickling down beside it in a sidebar, where they'd have to scroll back up to read. This is contrary to newspaper and magazine layout, where "up and down" reading is common and expected.

I'm not about to make any hard and fast decisions about web layouts here, it's just interesting stuff to think about (and probably even better stuff to research and find actual facts that tell a truer tale about how people best enjoy reading content on the web).