Read/Write Web gives a phenomenal overview of the attention economy. The crux of their focus:
- There has been an explosion of new types of information.
- People no longer read, they skim.
- News that used to last a day now lasts just a few hours, simply because we need to pay attention to the new news.
- The rapid growth of information causes scarcity of attention.
This scarcity of attention hurts the economics for retailers and media brands. It can also leave users and consumers frustrated as they must wade through the sea of information, before finding what they are looking for. They key to solving the battle for attention is relevancy.
The article digs deep into the economics of attention, the concepts, trust and technology, ending with these challenges:
- User information needs to be freed from proprietary silos.
- The industry needs to create a round table, to enable organizations to govern both the business and technical aspects of the attention economy.
- 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.