Attention chatter is everywhere it seems. A basic principle of attention as it relates to the cloud is that we are owners of our own attention data. That sounds good in theory, but I don't see personal ownership being much of a factor in the whole monetization dynamic. Darn near utopian even.
My attention is going to be exploited by smart advertisers, and that's about all I can expect. Hey, if they can use my attention to build a relationship with me or expose me to more interesting services and products, good for them! I somehow suspect that's not going to happen for a long time though. It's like my grocery store (and your's, I'll bet.) I've been going to the same grocery several times a week for years, using my idiot card every time, saving some dollaroonies in the process. But that's all I'm doing. Why in the world--with all of that data on my purchasing habits--can't the grocery store somehow communicate to me on a Monday that although I don't usually buy another 12-pack of Budweiser long necks until my Thursday visit, I may want to mosey on over to the beer aisle and save 2 dollars. But no, they're way too stupid to do anything with my Grocery Attention data.
But theoretically, boy-oh-boy are advertisers getting a wealth of data from iTunes! Check out this Connecting the Dots post on the wealth of attention data Apple is generating through iTunes. They know when I listen to only 2 minutes of a podcast and not the whole thing, for example, which I already knew, but when you think of it in terms of attention data then it's quite something. And unlike most RSS producers who have no clue who's subscribing to their feeds, Apple has not only the identity of the person who subscribes to a particular podcast, but has his credit card data on file as well. And I always thought it was cute that iTunes tracks the number of times I listen to every tune in my library. Cute, alright...
D'oh! Just arrived at a Bette Midler album in my library playlist. I don't want bombarded with a bunch of future gaybee advertisements--not that there's anything wrong with that. Better skip ahead to something else to jack up the macho play counts. Ahh, Gordon Lightfoot. That's better.