I was attended to read a post on TechCrunch on a move of the attention economy by a new service, I tried to understand the purpose of it and made it to this blogpost.
We all know that management of immaterial values is really fascinating, or at least, that’s what I think. Now think about management of immaterial values that does not exist yet. That would be really fascinating. Well, today it is possible. Sort of.
ROOT is a service that enables one to manage their own leads, which can be bought by others. While browsing the Internet, all kind of data can be captured. This data can be really valuable for some companies, for example for advertising companies. Now it is possible to capture your own browsing behaviour, while you expose the intention of your browsing time.
“ROOT Exchange provides Sellers with the opportunity to target a larger audience, instantly. By setting ask prices and receiving bids from lenders in the ROOT Exchange open marketplace, Sellers can reduce development costs and increase revenue per lead simultaniously.� (ROOT Exchange)
“ROOT Exchange offers Buyers the opportunity to purchase the leads they want, easily and efficiently. By using quality filters and real-time quotes, Buyers can place bids on leads based on the criteria that matters most to them.� (ROOT Exchange)
“In the case of ROOT, it is most likely not going to be sold in real time but in futures markets. You can already capture your attention data with the AttentionTrust plug-in and manage it with a ROOT Vault, but the company isn’t doing anything with it yet. Users can turn off tracking at any time. […] Keeping track of your web use through a tool like this has a lot of potential already, but ROOT is in a good position to leverage the data you share in a market.�(TechCrunch)
Honestly I question if this will work. It sounds like Internet companies in the past who would pay you for viewing advertisements. You just had to use the computer, move the cursor, and you got paid for every minute. You even got a share from people you referred using it. People tried to abuse this system by faking to use the computer and the idea collapsed.
The question is, can this self-captured data be more valuable for advertisers than data they can already obtain? If so, I think the service can last. At least it is interesting to follow.
Read more on the following sites to create your opinion on this (or to revise mine):
http://www.attentiontrust.org/about
http://www.techcrunch.com/2006/09/15/chicago-board-of-trade-invests-in-attention-futures-service-root/
http://root.net/
http://www.rootexchange.com/