The Attention Economy: An Overview
By Alex Iskold / March 1, 2007 6:46 PM / 45 Comments 1diggdigg
Written by Alex Iskold and edited by Richard MacManus
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.
The Attention Economy: An Overview
By Alex Iskold / March 1, 2007 6:46 PM / 45 Comments 1diggdigg
Written by Alex Iskold and edited by Richard MacManus
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 by tech news blog TechCrunch:
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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.
Attention Economy Concepts
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. For example news feeds illustrate the point well, since they ask for consumers attention in exchange for the opportunity to show him/her advertising. The Search engines are similar in that respect, because they show ads in exchange for helping users find answers online.
