Can I have your attention please…actually, you can have it.
June 28th, 2006
The first thing you’ll notice about Ed Batista is his intent look, his piercing blue eyes. He is focused; he wants to be sure you understand exactly why it is so important to know where you’re spending your attention. That’s right, spending, like money. And like money, attention has an economy of its own.
Ed is the Executive Director of AttentionTrust.org, a non-profit organization that has these guiding principles. AttentionTrust exists to promote the principle that each of us should own and control the attention data that we create, so that we can decide for ourselves how it can best be put to use.
While Ed enjoys hiking, exploring the SF Bay Area, and taking photographs, it is obvious that his true passion is the future of the attention economy. Here’s why:
- You will gain a better understanding of yourself. He compares it to a credit card statement at the end of a year. They allocate, sometimes by percent, how much you’re spending on food, on bills, at the movies, and, in my case, how much on golf. The Attention Recorder does the same. How much attention are you paying to ESPN.com, and CNET.com, versus blogs, Flickr, and BuzzShout? You might be surprised.
- By tracking your attention, you will eventually be able to connect to the content that is most relevant to you. For instance, you could share previous page views and purchase histories with any or all of the retailers that you use, so that you’d get personalized recommendations from your very first visit to their site. Or you could share data regarding the posts and articles you read, or the podcasts and music you listen to, with any media site of your choosing. They would then be able to direct you to new content that’s very relevant to your interests
- In the future, marketing and advertising will be more relevant to what you want. Imagine if an ad wasn’t an intrusion, but relevant content about something you wanted to find out more information about.
- Someday you can use the attention data to help create an in-depth profile of yourself in order to find people with similar interests. Imagine the future of dating, or of finding like-minded friends, or even business partners. Of course, who we are isn’t completely made up of where we spend our attention, but it is a strong indicator of our interests, and would therefore be extremely useful in matching us with similar people.
According to Ed, “The continued development of services that make use of our attention data is inevitable. Whether those services are developed in such a way that reflects what’s in our best interests as individuals, is an open question.”
It’s a question that we can answer. I’ll assume that mostly early adopters are reading this blog entry. We’re the people who understand what Web 2.0 is, who want to find what new applications and ideas are out there, who daydream about what the web can grow into. Go to AttentionTrust.org sometime, and spend some of your attention finding out about the Attention Recorder . In doing so, you’ll be one step closer to changing the future, so that we’ll all live in an individually customized world.
The first thing you’ll notice about Ed Batista is his intent look, his piercing blue eyes. He is focused; he wants to be sure you understand exactly why it is so important to know where you’re spending your attention. That’s right, spending, like money. And like money, attention has an economy of its own.
Ed is the Executive Director of AttentionTrust.org, a non-profit organization that has these guiding principles. AttentionTrust exists to promote the principle that each of us should own and control the attention data that we create, so that we can decide for ourselves how it can best be put to use.
While Ed enjoys hiking, exploring the SF Bay Area, and taking photographs, it is obvious that his true passion is the future of the attention economy. Here’s why:
- You will gain a better understanding of yourself. He compares it to a credit card statement at the end of a year. They allocate, sometimes by percent, how much you’re spending on food, on bills, at the movies, and, in my case, how much on golf. The Attention Recorder does the same. How much attention are you paying to ESPN.com, and CNET.com, versus blogs, Flickr, and BuzzShout? You might be surprised.
- By tracking your attention, you will eventually be able to connect to the content that is most relevant to you. For instance, you could share previous page views and purchase histories with any or all of the retailers that you use, so that you’d get personalized recommendations from your very first visit to their site. Or you could share data regarding the posts and articles you read, or the podcasts and music you listen to, with any media site of your choosing. They would then be able to direct you to new content that’s very relevant to your interests
- In the future, marketing and advertising will be more relevant to what you want. Imagine if an ad wasn’t an intrusion, but relevant content about something you wanted to find out more information about.
- Someday you can use the attention data to help create an in-depth profile of yourself in order to find people with similar interests. Imagine the future of dating, or of finding like-minded friends, or even business partners. Of course, who we are isn’t completely made up of where we spend our attention, but it is a strong indicator of our interests, and would therefore be extremely useful in matching us with similar people.
According to Ed, “The continued development of services that make use of our attention data is inevitable. Whether those services are developed in such a way that reflects what’s in our best interests as individuals, is an open question.”
It’s a question that we can answer. I’ll assume that mostly early adopters are reading this blog entry. We’re the people who understand what Web 2.0 is, who want to find what new applications and ideas are out there, who daydream about what the web can grow into. Go to AttentionTrust.org sometime, and spend some of your attention finding out about the Attention Recorder . In doing so, you’ll be one step closer to changing the future, so that we’ll all live in an individually customized world.
