AttentionTrust.org blogs

Open Data a tremendous success

Wed, 14 Mar 2007 14:23:04 -0600

Here is a little roundup of what people are saying about Open Data 2007.

I’m at Seth Goldstein’s Open Data confab at the Reuters building. I love the mission on the wall: “Open data is to media what open source is to technology. Open data is an approach to content creation that explicitly recognizes the value of implicit user dat. The internet is the first medim to give a voice to the attention that people pay to it. Successful open data companies listen for and amplify the rich data that their audiences produce.”

Open Data 2007

Mon, 05 Mar 2007 13:43:43 -0700

It is so easy to get excited about the latest Web 2.0 online media applications that we often lose sight of the fact that underneath all of these innovations is a fundamentally different kind of operating system, one based on open data as opposed to closed proprietary content. If I had to sum it up in a sentence:

Open Data is to media what Open Source is to technology.

On Tuesday March 13, more than sixty inventors, investors and interpreters of online media will gather to discuss Open Data. Due to the size of the space and the conversational environment we are looking to foster, this is an invitation-only event. That being said, in keeping with the spirit of the conference, we have reserved a handful of slots for any of you that have not been invited but who believe you have something vital to add to this debate.

Attention Recorder Now Compatible with Firefox 2.0

Tue, 07 Nov 2006 14:31:39 -0700

Just wanted to let everyone know that the newest version of the recorder (0.65) is now fully compatible with Firefox 2.0 and Flock 0.7.

You can download it at Attention Trust or Firefox Add-Ons

Happy recording.

No Goldhaber Reference?

Tue, 10 Oct 2006 16:41:21 -0600

Apparently there's a book on the attention economy with no reference to Michael Goldhaber in the bibliography.

Lurkers vs. Participants

Tue, 10 Oct 2006 16:34:12 -0600

In the process of talking about participation inequality, Jakob Nielsen discusses the role of attention data:

Make participation a side effect. Even better, let users participate with zero effort by making their contributions a side effect of something else they're doing. For example, Amazon's "people who bought this book, bought these other books" recommendations are a side effect of people buying books. You don't have to do anything special to have your book preferences entered into the system. Will Hill coined the term read wear for this type of effect: the simple activity of reading (or using) something will "wear" it down and thus leave its marks -- just like a cookbook will automatically fall open to the recipe you prepare the most.

On Attention Data in Engagement

Mon, 09 Oct 2006 06:25:53 -0600

Max Kalehoff discusses new ways to think about engagement. Number six focuses specifically on attention:

6. Respect of consumer’s attention metadata. Finally, media are going digital, and consumer attention and behavioral metadata will become the lifeblood of advertising research, profiling and relationship management–arguably the new core building blocks of engagement. This is especially true considering massive audience fragmentation and serious declines in traditional research panel response rates. As we move more to a direct model, any discussion of engagement must embrace a newfound respect for the fact that: 1) consumers’ attention is a valuable commodity to them, 2) consumers own their attention data, and 3) consumers are becoming more aware of how precious it really is.

VRM and CRM

Sun, 08 Oct 2006 17:32:33 -0600

Doc Searls on Vendor Relationship Management (VRM):

The relating may be enduring or transitory. It may involve disclosing some identity information; or it may keep us anonymous (while disclosing other information that's useful). It must, however, be useful to both sides. We don't have that with advertising (which, aside from all the waste it involves, brings the wrong perspective and sets of assumptions to the problem).

AttentionTrust Presents . . .

Tue, 03 Oct 2006 04:27:29 -0600

We have five open spots to attend a small gathering this Wednesday in San Francisco with Michael Goldhaber, "The Einstein of Attention." See the information below and email Curtis on a first-come basis if you are interested in attending.

AttentionTrust.org Presents
“The Founding Father of the Attention Economy”

Join us for a lunch discussion with Michael Goldhaber moderated by AT.org co-founder Seth Goldstein on the confusion between the old and new economy—followed by a discussion on the battle for consumer attention and future of attention services.

When:
Wednesday, October 4 from Noon to 3:00 PM (Goldhaber will speak at 1:15 pm after lunch)

Where:
Marines Memorial Club “Heritage Room”—10th Floor—609 Sutter St, San Francisco, CA 94102

Why:
Every individual has the right to own, store, move and exchange the personal attention data they create. We support this principle not simply because it’s the right thing to do, but also because it’s in the best interests of anyone who hopes to develop practical attention services that will deliver real value to individual users. Who is in control?

RSVP: curtis AT attentionpr DOT com

PROPERTY… MOBILITY… ECONOMY… TRANSPARENCY

Million Dollar Prize

Mon, 02 Oct 2006 08:33:30 -0600

Netflix is offering $1 million to whoever can improve their recommendation system the most. More info at Netflixprize.com.

APML

Sun, 01 Oct 2006 22:24:13 -0600
A proposal for an attention profiling mark-up language:
APML will allow users to export and use their own personal Attention Profile in much the same way that OPML allows them to export their reading lists from Feed Readers. The idea is to boil down all forms of Attention Data – including Browser History, OPML, Attention.XML, Email etc – to a portable file format containing a description of ranked user interests.

Buzzlogic

Wed, 27 Sep 2006 06:42:32 -0600
ZDNet article about a new influence measurement service called Buzzlogic:
Delivered as an on demand software service, BuzzLogic looks at content relevance, using full text analysis; the number of messages from a certain publisher over time; traffic, including users referred by influencers and total number of pages views; and attention to messages via link analysis, including temporal data and total number of inbound links.

Attention Architecture

Tue, 19 Sep 2006 19:58:42 -0600
Alex Iskold imagines an attention architecture:
To make the concept of attention compelling and to prove to the consumers that their attention information is important, we need to build applications that provide useful services. And to build these applications we need a platform for the attention players to plug into. In short, we need attention ecosystem, where application providers can interplay and deliver definitive value to the end users.

The Facebook Fiasco

Wed, 13 Sep 2006 10:24:37 -0600
Scott Karp comments on Facebook's news feeds and the outcry that followed:
The lesson for Web 2.0 social software developers is (duh) that the USERS ARE IN CONTROL. They feel ownership not only over their content, but over the platform as well. When you empower users with your software, it means that you can’t go changing it without the users’ consent. Facebook made the mistake of thinking that they were in control of the software. But they’re not — they’ve already ceded control to their users.

Thanks from Ed Batista

Tue, 05 Sep 2006 13:01:28 -0600

Helping AttentionTrust get off the ground has been a rewarding experience, and I'm proud that my efforts have assisted in the transformation of Seth Goldstein and Steve Gillmor's vision into reality. The results of these efforts include financial sponsorship from the Omidyar Network, a membership of over 800 supporters, more than 5,000 Attention Recorder downloads, and ongoing administrative support from the San Francisco Foundation. And over the past year, the concept of attention has become a central feature of discussions about the future of media, communication and the web itself, reflected in the 15,000 "attention" tags on del.icio.us and Technorati.

With these elements in place, I believe AttentionTrust is well-prepared for the future, and I've decided that it's the right time for me to transition out of my role as Executive Director in order to pursue my interests in executive coaching and change management consulting. Many thanks to everyone who's been involved with AttentionTrust, and I look forward to working alongside you in a new capacity!

Many of my duties are now being handled by Curtis Hougland and Cori Schlegel, who've been actively involved with AttentionTrust on a number of fronts over the past year. If you have any questions related to AttentionTrust, please contact Curtis or Cori directly. You can stay in touch with me through my personal site. Thanks again!

Ed Batista

tags: attention attentiontrust attention+trust attention+data attention+economy

Pageviews are Obsolete

Mon, 28 Aug 2006 16:34:21 -0600
Evhead on pageviews:
There's a big opportunity (though very tough job) for someone to come up with a meaningful metric that weighs a bunch of factors. But no matter what, there will come a time when no one who wants to be taken seriously will talk about their web traffic in terms of "pageviews" any more than one would brag about their "hits" today.