Most of our readers will have encountered the concept of the attention economy many times. However this concept does not adequately explain peer to peer processes and is a concept that was operative in the mass media. It only applies to internet media in the sense that we are also in part consumers. But we are much more than that.
I tried to explain it in my own manuscript, inspired by the formulation of Reed’s Law concerning Group Forming Networks. Here’s the excerpt:
The shift in ‘business models’ characteristics of the new networks is explained by David Reed, who has summarized the different mathematical laws inherent in the value created by networks. First, we focus on the individuals. If a network has N-members and memberships grows, then one can see a linear growth in audience, i.e. N+1, N+2, etc.. i.e. a proportional growth in value. This formula was already at play in broadcast media and in such an environment, ‘content is king’, and publishers vie for the attention of the users of the network. This explains the role of portal sites such as Yahoo, who re-intermediate the economy of attention that we discussed before. If we now focus on the ‘interaction between individuals’, we see that the network enables transactions, but that these grow by a ‘square value’. This characteristic is called Metcalfe’s Law. A network of 2 allows for 2 transactions (back and forth buying and selling), a network of 3 allows for 8 transactions, a network of 4 allows for 16 transactions. This aspect of the network creates transactional platforms such as eBay. Finally, we focus on community. Networks have the ability to enable the formation of subgroups, they are ‘Group Forming Networks’. But value growth here is ‘exponential’. It is this characteristic that is called Reed’s Law. Every affinity group creates and ‘consumes’ its own content, and it is here that the true peer to peer processes emerge, characterized by infinite content creation. The economy of attention becomes moot, because what is happening is not limited content competing for the same audience, but infinite content competing for infinite combinations of affinity groups. You are then creating content, not for an audience, but as a means of creating interconnectedness between a group of people sharing an interest or common goal.”
So a lot of interaction and transaction will be going on inside those multiple groups. As it is impossible for marketeers to be present in all of them, a sensible thing to do for those groups, is to develop means to ‘pull’ the supply towards them, by declaring their intentions. This is what the new concepts of pull economies and social commerce are trying to convey.
We’re quoting:
The Intention Economy grows around buyers, not sellers. It leverages the simple fact that buyers are the first source of money, and that they come ready-made. You don’t need advertising to make them. The Intention Economy is about markets, not marketing. You don’t need marketing to make Intention Markets. The Intention Economy is built around truly open markets, not a collection of silos. In The Intention Economy, customers don’t have to fly from silo to silo, like a bees from flower to flower, collecting deal info (and unavoidable hype) like so much pollen. In The Intention Economy, the buyer notifies the market of the intent to buy, and sellers compete for the buyer’s purchase. Simple as that.
The Intention Economy is built around more than transactions. Conversations matter. So do relationships. So do reputation, authority and respect. Those virtues, however, are earned by sellers (as well as buyers) and not just “branded” by sellers on the minds of buyers like the symbols of ranchers burned on the hides of cattle.The Intention Economy is about buyers finding sellers, not sellers finding (or “capturing”) buyers. In The Intention Economy, a car rental customer should be able to say to the car rental market, “I’ll be skiing in Park City from March 20-25. I want to rent a 4-wheel drive SUV. I belong to Avis Wizard, Budget FastBreak and Hertz 1 Club. I don’t want to pay up front for gas or get any insurance. What can any of you companies do for me?” — and have the sellers compete for the buyer’s business.
This car rental use case is one I’ve used to illustrate what would be made possible by “user-centric” or “independent” identity, which was also the subject of the cover story in last October’s Linux Journal, plus this piece a year earlier, and various keynotes I’ve given at Digital Identity World, going back to 2002. It is also the use case against which the new open source Higgins project was framed.
Even though I’ve been thinking out loud about Independent Identity for years, I didn’t have a one-word adjective for the kind of market economy it would yield, or where it would thrive. Now, thanks to all the unclear talk at eTech about attention, intentional is that adjective, because intent is the noun that matters most in any economy that gives full respect to what only customers can do, which is buy.”