Etech 2006 Conference - David Sifry – Attention Economy

What is Attention? Fundamentally about time.

How do you evaluate where long term value exists in the Attention Economy? Fundamentally attention is time directed to a purpose by people.

Most economic models focus on what is scarce. We talk about scarcity of capital, scarcity of space, scarcity of labor pool in a capitalist system. It’s a good tool to use to understand tradeoffs.

What is scarce in the attention economy?

• CPU Cycles? No.
• Storage? No.
• Network Bandwidth? No.
• Money? Ability to provide      basics of food and shelter… Well ok we like money but we already have lots      of resources.

What does Bill Gates not even have enough of? Time and people.

Information is not scarce – information overload is the problem. Human beings are only wired to have certain number of meaningful relationships.

We can’t hoard time – use it or lose it. It’s a perishable resource
Aggregate Attention Artifacts. Where I spend my time is very valuable. Clickstream data is implicit metadata. I don’t have to do anything to create this data other than live my life.

Help me be more productive. Technorati – what are people saying about me, right now.
Make sure you incorporate an understanding of time and people into your design.

Attention is both a currency and a perishable.

Hyperlinks are votes of attention. Create opportunities for economies of scale.