Attention Scarcity: The Economy's Shift Towards Attention as Key Resource
The attention economy is threatening to swallow me whole. It's so seductively unifying.

Herbert Simon
Here's the progenitor, according to Wikipedia: Herbert Simon. And here are links to some of his writings.

The theory of attention economics applies to EVERYTHING, but specifically applies to marketers in Simon's definition here:

"...in an information-rich world, the wealth of information means a dearth of something else: a scarcity of whatever it is that information consumes. What information consumes is rather obvious: it consumes the attention of its recipients. Hence a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention and a need to allocate that attention efficiently among the overabundance of information sources that might consume it" (1971)

(...think analytics here; how online marketers have TOO MUCH site data on their hands. And obvious applications to reaching your target audience.)

Michael H. Goldhaber
I'm also in the process of getting a handle on The Attention Economy: The Natural Economy of the Net by Michael H. Goldhaber (from 1997).

Here's Michael H. Goldhaber's site.

And here's his most recent presentation, which he gave at the O’reilly “E-tech” Conference in San Diego, CA Wednesday, March 8, 2006: The Real Nature of the Emerging Attention Economy (pdf).

The following quotation's from his 1997 work linked above:

What counts most is what is most scarce now, namely attention. The attention economy brings with it its own kind of wealth, its own class divisions - stars vs. fans - and its own forms of property, all of which make it incompatible with the industrial-money-market based economy it bids fair to replace. Success will come to those who best accommodate to this new reality.

I first learned about the attention economy from Seth Goldstein's blog, from a series of posts.

Attention Economy Reading from Seth Goldstein's blog:
Attentrons on the Cutting Room Floor
March/06 interview with Goldhaber: Attention & Productivity
Thread 2: Attention & Mirror Neurons
Thread 3: The relationship of the Attention Economy to ADD
Thread 4: Attention Tracking Technologies
Thread 5: Attention in the age of TIVO

Why I'm going to spend some time with this concept
This concept is, for me, a missing piece to my understanding of what's happening in the online space. I'm equally interested in digging into why the online space enables this shift, and why social media seems (to me) to be such a big part of this.

Were recent attempts by big marketing firm smarties to define engagement related to this study of attention? Probably so.

Another reason I'm going to spend time with this concept: I don't want to hyper-obsess it before I really get it ;)
Garrett French - MarketSmart Interactive | permalink | +marktd |