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Social foo: Peak Attention
Aug. 10th, 2011 06:13 pmhttp://www.ribbonfarm.com/2011/06/08/a-brief-history-of-the-corporation-1600-to-2100/print/
The article is an interesting read, because of some of the ideas it posits. The main one I'm looking at is near the end: Peak Attention. Similar to Peak Oil, the theory goes that there's only so much Attention out there, and it gets harder and harder to capture pockets of such Attention (with advertising, for example).
What we're talking about is the limits of time. We've reached a point where, if a TV show is to be successful, it must wrangle eyeballs away from other TV shows, internet entertainments, work schedules, play time with families, etc, etc. If it doesn't, well, Comcast is forcing Syfy to cancel Eureka because it doesn't generate enough ad revenue to support the cost of the special effects.
This explains a lot about things like why Borders went out of business. Borders no longer offered enough incentive to capture enough Attention to stay in business. Barnes & Noble is staying in the game by offering toys, games, movies, music, a decent web store online, and an ereader. In the absence of an easily captured pool, B&N solved the problem by casting the nets wider, into multiple pools.
It's a fascinating way to think about the current market.
The article is an interesting read, because of some of the ideas it posits. The main one I'm looking at is near the end: Peak Attention. Similar to Peak Oil, the theory goes that there's only so much Attention out there, and it gets harder and harder to capture pockets of such Attention (with advertising, for example).
What we're talking about is the limits of time. We've reached a point where, if a TV show is to be successful, it must wrangle eyeballs away from other TV shows, internet entertainments, work schedules, play time with families, etc, etc. If it doesn't, well, Comcast is forcing Syfy to cancel Eureka because it doesn't generate enough ad revenue to support the cost of the special effects.
This explains a lot about things like why Borders went out of business. Borders no longer offered enough incentive to capture enough Attention to stay in business. Barnes & Noble is staying in the game by offering toys, games, movies, music, a decent web store online, and an ereader. In the absence of an easily captured pool, B&N solved the problem by casting the nets wider, into multiple pools.
It's a fascinating way to think about the current market.
