Your Attention, Pretty Please?
In March 2007, Alex Iskold wrote about the emergence of the “attention economy”, a marketplace “where consumers agree to receive services in exchange for their attention.” The always-on nature of digital media has increased the scarcity of human attention, and in turn has increased its value. To put it concretely: the more time a company can get you to spend on their website, the more ad revenue they can potentially earn or the higher the likelihood that you’ll purchase one of their products.
I mention the attention economy not to wax theoretic about it, but to share my personal struggle with choosing how to invest my attention. I’ve been thinking a lot recently about the purpose of all this technology reading and writing that I do. I enjoy thinking about the topics that I regularly cover. The evolution of web 2.0 and social network is fascinating to me, and it plays well to my geek tendencies. But my brain has been flirting recently with what bloggers have started to call “social media fatigue,” an exhaustion resulting from the overexposure to and overanalysis of those topics.
There’s Hope
However, my passion for social media was reinvigorated last week when I was directed to a web page where a friend was raising money to support her marathon run in honor of her college roommate’s struggle with cancer. I put the link up in my Gmail status and sent an email to some of my fellow classmates to let them know about it. Though I certainly can’t and wouldn’t claim to have made a huge impact, I think a few of the donors that day decided to act because of that simple message and link from a friend. By the end of the day, my friend had raised several hundred dollars, and as of today she has raised over $1,000 from over 25 donors.
Though the story is not unique or especially exciting, it brought home for me how much potential there is for social media. So much good can be done! And people create applications on Facebook that allow you to… throw sheep? Give each other cupcakes? Come on! Luckily, some people have caught on.
Continue reading ‘Attention Invesment’
As always, your Monday Links (I’m off to a slow start this morning, so they’re a little late):
- This article from the NY Times Technology section describes a really neat idea for an online marketplace that links inventors with corporate purchasers more efficiently:
The marketplace is an online registry that will have descriptions of inventions for browsing by prospective buyers. But it will have an unusual twist: before inventions are listed, the registry will provide in-person or online workshops to help inventors recast their often technical prose in jargon-free descriptions for the business and industrial customers that are expected to shop at the site
[...] Company software will [also] evaluate the invention’s probable cost to the buyer before the first sale as well as other business angles, and add the information to the capsule description.
How, [the article's author] asks, is this any different than steroids? Well, assuming we had the long term data, and could prove the safety conclusively, you could also ask how it’s different than college, or preschool. It’s something you pay for that makes you smarter and more cognitively efficient. If I felt sure that it would never harm me, I’d probably pop them like candy. Enough people doing that, of course, and you create a collective action problem in which everyone needs to use them to keep up. It could be a problem. Or, in the future, it could just be the norm.
Though the airships are small by blimp standards, only 20 m long, they can house about 120 square meters of CIGS solar cells, producing up to 125 kWh / day. That’s enough energy to power 25 shallow water pumps, providing clean water for up to 12,000 people. Or enough to power 400 medical refrigerators.
It’s a pleasure for us to publish this thoughtful guest post written by “Marriott” — good friend, good neighbor, and good ol’ fashioned lover of Freedom.
What if I said that you could plant corn any time of year, in any climate condition, and still harvest the same succulent vegetable that many of us grew up eating every summer? What if you could do this for any vegetable? During my morning commute I read an article in the Washington Post that discussed how this may be a possibility for the future of farming. (I urge you to read the Post article)
Although there are many issues to discuss with this idea, my focus will deal with the corporate side of things and the future of this potentially lucrative industry. Feel free to debate the usage of these seeds, their methods, or anything else that hits a nerve with this issue.
Geneticists and scientists working for major bio-tech and agricultural development firms have been working on developing “Climate Ready” crops. The basic idea is that through genetically altered seeds, these scientists can create crops that are drought, heat, flooding resistant. They are basically “Global-Warming Proofing” our crops. And with the recent sticker shock at grocery stores throughout the country, this appears as a welcome opportunity to help the impending food crisis.
The problem with this recent technology is patent monopolization. From the article:
Three companies – BASF of Germany, Syngenta of Switzerland and Monsanto of St. Louis – have filed applications to control nearly two-thirds of the climate-related gene families submitted to patent offices worldwide.
The nature of these patents is even more troubling as corporations are able to eliminate competition. In one such case a corporation is applying for a patent to use one gene, and in the language of the patent the corporation effectively bans other corporations from using the same gene in any other “Climate Ready” seed.
Continue reading ‘Competition Needed Among “Climate Ready” Crops [Guest Post]‘
I read an interesting article in The New York Times (our favorite source) about habits and their influence on human creativity and innovation. Janet Rae-Dupree writes that
brain researchers have discovered that when we consciously develop new habits, we create parallel synaptic paths, and even entirely new brain cells, that can jump our trains of thought onto new, innovative tracks. Rather than dismissing ourselves as unchangeable creatures of habit, we can instead direct our own change by consciously developing new habits. In fact, the more new things we try — the more we step outside our comfort zone — the more inherently creative we become, both in the workplace and in our personal lives.
Rae-Dupree goes on to note that, in addition to today’s much emphasized powers of analysis and procedure, we’re born with equally strong innovative and collaborative problem-solving capabilities. Those two approaches, however, are known to go under biological and cultural attack throughout our younger years. Biologically, at puberty the brain often “throws out” innovation and collaboration because they go underutilized and are deemed less cognitively “valuable.” Culturally, the emphasis these days on analytic and systematic learning (especially in the face of standardized testing) fosters less development of the more creative mental faculties.
It turns out that “stretching” our minds into new ways of thinking can be beneficial in multiple arenas. Physically, learning to think in new ways keeps our brains and even our bodies healthy. One interviewee in the article notes that “researchers who asked folks to do something different every day — listen to a new radio station, for instance — found that they lost and kept off weight. No one is sure why, but scientists speculate that getting out of routines makes us more aware in general”.
Encouraging unique thought processes can also benefit businesses, non-profits, and government. More and more, I hear about job interviews where people are asked something like: “How many golf balls does it take to fill up a school bus.” They don’t know the answer, and don’t really care what number the candidate comes up with. Smart companies are investigating and investing not in what potential hires know, but in how they think.
Continue reading ‘Habitual Thinking’
So I opened CNN.com tonight to check out the primary returns and get the latest from Myanmar, and next to several of the headlines I saw a new icon. I’m used to seeing the little white camera button that drives readers to video coverage… but this time, there was also something that looked like a little t-shirt. And, of course, I clicked it.
What I was presented with was fairly disgusting to me. I was taken to the product page for a custom t-shirt with the headline in question in large letters on the front (in this case, “Obama: We’re close to the nomination”) accompanied by, in smaller letters, “I just saw it on CNN.com” and the date and time the story was published. It can be yours, for just $15.00!
Does anyone else think this is kinda sad? I mean, first of all, who’s going to buy this? Even if there is an earth-shattering or mildly amusing headline (another available slogan/headline is “Suspect leads cops on golf cart chase”)… should it really be CNN selling or promoting these? It reminds me a little too much of The Onion Store — and that’s fake news, people.
Is it a bad thing that news networks are turning their stories into commodotized sound bites that get slapped on t-shirts, mugs, etc.? Doesn’t this promote sensationalism and deemphasize good content? Even if it’s OK for CNN to do this… should the links be so prominent, on the same level as links to video news?
To me, this is just another sad sign of the media sinking lower and lower. But what do you think? Am I just overreacting?
Images unapologetically screen captured from CNN.
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