n. An economic model based on the expanding amount of available information and the static amount of attention consumers can devote to that information.
1999
But in the US Free-PC has gone further still: you give them your demographics, they give you a top-of-the-range branded computer with all the bells and whistles and free internet access.
Wired reports that Free-PC expected to get 10,000 applications; it got 500 000!
Will it work? Latest statistics show that ad spend in the US is $2 billion a year. There are 87 million connected people in the US and Canada, meaning that adspend per person is about $24 a year.
Computers apparently sell in the US at about $800; an internet connection costs under $20.00 a month. Assume a two-year life on the machine and the cost per person is about $50.00 per month or $600 a year.
Not many companies would want to give away $600 a year in the hope of getting $24 back. Free-PC evidently believes it can at least get advertising to cover its costs.
This is being called attention economics. You do anything you can to get attention, even monetise it by giving away free stuff which costs you money.
Wired reports that Free-PC expected to get 10,000 applications; it got 500 000!
Will it work? Latest statistics show that ad spend in the US is $2 billion a year. There are 87 million connected people in the US and Canada, meaning that adspend per person is about $24 a year.
Computers apparently sell in the US at about $800; an internet connection costs under $20.00 a month. Assume a two-year life on the machine and the cost per person is about $50.00 per month or $600 a year.
Not many companies would want to give away $600 a year in the hope of getting $24 back. Free-PC evidently believes it can at least get advertising to cover its costs.
This is being called attention economics. You do anything you can to get attention, even monetise it by giving away free stuff which costs you money.
1994
There is the reality of attention economics. …One of the great ironies of information economics is that while information can be trivially copied and the information bandwidth continues to widen, the individual's attention bandwidth is as narrow as ever.
1992 (earliest)
Goldhaber's oeuvre centers around the notion of "attention" as the new organizing commodity of society, complementing financial capital in fostering productive (?) activity…. In a world of abundance (the First World, basically), physical goods and people no longer compete only on their innate value, but also on their ability to gain "attention" that will somehow add to their value and the satisfaction of those who pay them attention. Circularity intended.)…
The appropriate response to attention economics is up to the beholder. Is the attention society one we want to live in?
The appropriate response to attention economics is up to the beholder. Is the attention society one we want to live in?