All Annotations of The Attention Economy: An Overview[Preview]

saved by27 people, first byOrlin Monad on 2007-03-02, last byNathan Rein on 2008-08-13

• It is no secret that we live in an information overload age. The explosion of new
  types of information online is a double-edged sword. We both enjoy and drown in news,
  blogs, podcasts, photos, videos and cool MySpace pages.
• Because of this information explosion, we no longer read - we skim. The news that used
  to last a day now lasts just a few hours, simply because we need to pay attention to the
  new news. So it is becoming increasingly difficult to juggle all the news sources
  and keep on top of things. Which brings us to the law of information, stated first by Herbert Simon: the
  rapid growth of information causes scarcity of attention.
• Economics of Attention
• When information is abundant, the false positives are very costly - they are basically
  deal breakers.
• The idea behind
  the Attention Economy is to create a marketplace where consumers are happy,
  because if they are shown relevant information - then retailers are happy too, because
  happy consumers spend money!
• The basic ideas behind the Attention Economy are simple. Such an economy facilitates a
  marketplace where consumers agree to receives services in exchange for their attention.
  The ultimate purpose is of course to sell something to the consumer, but the selling does
  not need to be direct and does not need to be instant.
• It is important to realize that the key ingredient in the attention game is
  relevancy. As long as a consumer sees relevant content, he/she is going to stick
  around - and that creates more opportunities to sell.
• it is not possible for sites to generate relevant, personalized
  content unless they know the user
• Another key ingredient of the Attention Economy is privacy. The challenge is not just
  to protect consumers information, the challenge is to put the user in control of her
  information. The notion that in an Attention Economy, a user's information is up for
  grabs and can be bought and sold is misinformed. Instead, the user chooses what services
  he/she wants to receive, in exchange for their attention information. To help message
  these ideas and to protect consumers, Steve Gillmor
  and Seth Goldstein founded an organization
  called AttentionTrust.

• The
  founders of AttentionTrust succeeded in
  defining a simple, elegant, yet encompassing set of principles that define the rules of
  the game, by outlining the basic consumer rights in the AttentionEconomy:

  
  
  

  
  
  • Property: You own your attention and can store it wherever you wish.
    You have CONTROL.
  
  
  
  • Mobility: You can securely move your attention wherever you want,
    whenever you want to. You have the ability to TRANSFER your attention.
  
  
  
  • Economy: You can pay attention to whomever you wish and receive
    value in return. Your attention has WORTH.
  
  
  
  • Transparency: You can see exactly how your attention is being
    used.
• For example, it follows from the rules that services should provide a
  way for users to export their information. Another consequence of the rules is that a
  user should be able to request cancellation of their account and deletion of all their
  information.

• Here are some of the important issues that
  need to be addressed:

  
  
  

  
  
  • Silos: User information needs to be freed from proprietary silos
  
  
  
  • Round Table: The industry needs to create a round table, to enable
    organizations to govern both the business and technical aspects of the attention economy
    (think Java Community Process).
  
  
  
  • Education: People need to be educated about the value of their attention and
    the principles of attention economy. Avoiding privacy concerns will not work, instead
    they need to be tackled head on.

• AttentionTrust has created a Firefox
  add-on called AttentionRecorder which captures clickstream and redirects to a vault. The
  user also has a choice of where to store the data. A standard protocol between the
  attention capturing software and storage software ensures that users have the choice.

  
  
  

  The user information that is stored in the database can be accessed by trusted
  services. These services, approved by the user in advance, have the opportunity to take
  advantage of the user information to deliver personalization.

• When information is abundant, the false positives are very costly - they are basically
  deal breakers. Consumers happily leave sites, knowing there are a ton of alternatives out
  there. Unfortunately, this becomes a lose-lose situation, because if consumers rarely
  find satisfying experiences then retailers won't get consumer dollars. The idea behind
  the Attention Economy is to create a marketplace where consumers are happy,
  because if they are shown relevant information - then retailers are happy too, because
  happy consumers spend money!
• Because of this information explosion, we no longer read - we skim.
• the
  rapid growth of information causes scarcity of attention.
• The Attention Economy: An Overview

• Herbert Simon: the
  rapid growth of information causes scarcity of attention.

  
  
  

• the challenge is to put the user in control of her
  information.

• basic consumer rights in the AttentionEconomy:

  
  
  

  
  
  • Property: You own your attention and can store it wherever you wish.
    You have CONTROL.
  
  
  
  • Mobility: You can securely move your attention wherever you want,
    whenever you want to. You have the ability to TRANSFER your attention.
  
  
  
  • Economy: You can pay attention to whomever you wish and receive
    value in return. Your attention has WORTH.
  
  
  
  • Transparency: You can see exactly how your attention is being
    used.
  
  

  
  
  

• the law of information, stated first by Herbert Simon: the
  rapid growth of information causes scarcity of attention.
• Things get more interesting when we realize that our attention crisis is not only our
  problem. It is also a big problem for news sites, blogs, search engines and online
  retailers. Our scarcity of attention hurts their economics. The web sites that contain
  content relevant to us have a big incentive to make sure that we find it.
• The basic ideas behind the Attention Economy are simple. Such an economy facilitates a
  marketplace where consumers agree to receives services in exchange for their attention.
  The ultimate purpose is of course to sell something to the consumer, but the selling does
  not need to be direct and does not need to be instant.
• the key ingredient in the attention game is
  relevancy. As long as a consumer sees relevant content, he/she is going to stick
  around - and that creates more opportunities to sell.
• Another key ingredient of the Attention Economy is privacy. The challenge is not just
  to protect consumers information, the challenge is to put the user in control of her
  information.
• the
  rapid growth of information causes scarcity of attention.
• The web sites that contain
  content relevant to us have a big incentive to make sure that we find it.
• The idea behind
  the Attention Economy is to create a marketplace where consumers are happy,
  because if they are shown relevant information - then retailers are happy too, because
  happy consumers spend money!
• Such an economy facilitates a
  marketplace where consumers agree to receives services in exchange for their attention.
  The ultimate purpose is of course to sell something to the consumer, but the selling does
  not need to be direct and does not need to be instant.
• It is important to realize that the key ingredient in the attention game is
  relevancy.
• However, it is not possible for sites to generate relevant, personalized
  content unless they know the user. To personalize, web sites need to know you: your
  browsing history, the books you like, the wines you drink, the music you listening to,
  etc. The more information the better.
• Another key ingredient of the Attention Economy is privacy.
• The challenge is not just
  to protect consumers information, the challenge is to put the user in control of her
  information.
• in an Attention Economy, a user's information is up for
  grabs and can be bought and sold is misinformed. Instead, the user chooses what services
  he/she wants to receive, in exchange for their attention information
• Ideally, a body of standards and
  protocols should be the technological foundation of the Attention Economy.
• AttentionTrust has created a Firefox
  add-on called AttentionRecorder

• The Attention Economy: An Overview

  
  

  
  
  Written by Alex Iskold / March 1, 2007 6:46 PM
  
  / 45 Comments
  

  
  
  

  
  
  

  
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  Written by Alex Iskold and edited by Richard MacManus

  
  
  

  
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  <script type="text/javascript" src="http://digg.com/tools/diggthis.js"></script> It is no secret that we live in an information overload age. The explosion of new
  types of information online is a double-edged sword. We both enjoy and drown in news,
  blogs, podcasts, photos, videos and cool MySpace pages. And the problem is only going to
  get worse, as more and more people discover the new web. Consider the two charts below,
  illustrating the growth of the Blogosphere at large and also in number of posts published
  

• he news that used
  to last a day now lasts just a few hours, simply because we need to pay attention to the
  new news. So it is becoming increasingly difficult to juggle all the news sources
  and keep on top of things. Which brings us to the law of information, stated first by Herbert Simon: the
  rapid growth of information causes scarcity of attention.
• Because of this information explosion, we no longer read - we skim.
• Because of this information explosion, we no longer read - we skim
• Things get more interesting when we realize that our attention crisis is not only our
  problem. It is also a big problem for news sites, blogs, search engines and online
  retailers.

• Consider this
  scenario. You navigate to a news site and start reading the headlines. What is the
  likelihood that you leave if you see an irrelevant headline? High. Another example. You
  go to Netflix and look at movie recommendations. What is the likelihood that you will
  stop browsing after Netflix shows you a movie you do not like? Again, very high.

  
  
  

• Consumers happily leave sites, knowing there are a ton of alternatives out
  there.
• The ultimate purpose is of course to sell something to the consumer, but the selling does
  not need to be direct and does not need to be instant.
• the key ingredient in the attention game is
  relevancy
• As long as a consumer sees relevant content, he/she is going to stick
  around - and that creates more opportunities to sell.
• This is a complex problem that
  can be partially addressed by recommendation
  engines. However, it is not possible for sites to generate relevant, personalized
  content unless they know the user.

• on 2007-09-14 Melaclaro
  Worth reading. Interesting social analysis relating to consumers and management of information overload.