Cherry-pick from Jakob Nielsen’s Alertbox for October 1 on [http://www.useit.com/alertbox/intro-text.html Blah-Blah Text: Keep, Cut, or Kill?].
Summary:
:Introductory text on Web pages is usually too long, so users skip it. But short intros can increase usability by explaining the remaining content’s purpose.
Enjoy being inspired by Nielsen’s [http://www.useit.com/papers/webwriting/ writing for the web].