The Attention Economy

[version]

Is it possible to succeed in such an economy as a consumer? Can you adapt to it? What are the benefits of adaptation?

 

[version]

I suppose consumer success would look much like success in any other economy, i.e. getting what you want or need / something valuable at minimal mental, physical and financial cost.

It's complicated by the nature of the product though. You can't really think of attention / information along the same lines as a jacket or car. It just operates differently.

The buyer / seller distinction's increasingly blurred when it comes to information and attention too. You could argue that we're all both.

 

[Leo]

Do you mean getting attention for oneself, as a measure of success, the way someone would work to earn enough to buy that high-status jacket or car?

 

[version]

Do you mean getting attention for oneself, as a measure of success, the way someone would work to earn enough to buy that high-status jacket or car?

I mean consumer as in someone whose attention's being competed for; the reader rather than the writer or publisher.

 

[Leo]

ah, so the attention a person pays to information sources, as opposed to attention they get for themselves.

 

[Leo]

one question is what's the measure of success, what does it mean?

 

[version]

one question is what's the measure of success, what does it mean?

Yeah, that's also what I'm asking. Is it even possible to succeed when you yourself are the resource?

 

[version]

ah, so the attention a person pays to information sources, as opposed to attention they get for themselves.

Right, although, like I say, the distinction's increasingly blurred when you take something like social media into account.

Someone with an active Twitter account may not have a concrete product beyond being an appealing node in a network repackaging the things which have managed to draw their attention, but that's still a product that itself draws attention.

 

[sus]

Just look outside, the girls in their short denim skirts and bared navels, the boys blasting music from their pimped-out rides. "It's all an attention economy?" "Always has been."

 

[sus]

Go to a bookshop, look at all the covers screaming out at their target demographics with specialized graphic design, catchy titles. Look at the newspaper sellers and magazine stands. The trailers before movies. The movie itself.

 

[sus]

You can't con someone if they're not paying attention. Step 1 is getting it. Step 2 is making the pitch. Step 3 is consummation.

 

[WashYourHands]

 

[version]

I see I have Gus' attention.

 

[WashYourHands]

!

 

[WashYourHands]

Consummated

 

[sus]

I see I have Gus' attention.

Now what're you gonna do about it

 

[Clinamenic]

Yeah clocks tickin versh