Social foo: Peak Attention

[alpharaposa]

http://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.

Comments

[rhjunior.livejournal.com]

Uhh, no, Borders bookstores went out of business for two reasons:

1)Taxes and fees pushed their operating costs too high for them to continue.
2)The publishing industry has refused to adapt to the digital age. In the era of the Kindle, charging someone eight dollars for a paperback and twenty-five for a hardback is not a viable business model.

[zeeth_kyrah]

You're looking at only one side of the coin with these statements. The other side is that it was Borders' responsibility to find the means of viability, and it did not. Instead of expanding digitally, the structure collapsed. You must remember, book sellers are part of the publishing industry, the customer-facing part.

And while taxes and fees may have been a problem, it was a problem faced by B&N as well, presumably at an equal level.

The edge of the coin is where B&N grew: they made for themselves a larger coin, catching more of consumers' attention by having more surface available.

[rhjunior.livejournal.com]

The fluff about "attention catching" is still just that-- fluff, ignoring the real, dollars-and-cents issues that brought Borders down. They're both BOOK stores....or they both WERE. Their mission statement was to sell BOOKS.

And they have BOTH been driven out of the bookselling industry by the same things: high overhead.

Turning your bookstore into a toy shop and cafe' doesn't change the fact that your product-of-title--- BOOKS--- are too high-priced. You can have all the attention in the world but that means NOTHING if the people oggling you can't afford your core product.

[zeeth_kyrah]

What's the price of a book on the Kindle?

[rhjunior.livejournal.com]

It depends on the distributor. (throw iPads and other portable reader devices in with the Kindle.) Amazon is trying to market downloads at the same price as hardcopies.... it's hurting them, though, because (and you can't seem to get this through to them) PEOPLE ARE NOT DUMB. Other distributors/publishers offer downloads at a much lower cost.... and they're raking in literal millions. One author went indie and entirely download, and TURNED DOWN a $250,000 book advance because, even at 1 or 2 dollars a download, his projected online earnings for his books in the first year alone were better than that.

[stryck.livejournal.com]

And he sold those books on Amazon, too.

The problem with pricing isn't because of Amazon. It's because of the publishers. Some are getting the message. Baen is good at pricing less than physical copies.

In the meantime, Amazon is scooping up traffic that used to buy in bookstores because they deliver more content for less time investment - in effect, they developed a new technology for capturing Attention, in the same way that fracking frees up oil.

[rhjunior.livejournal.com]

You're still attributing too much to their ability to "get attention." All the advertising and all the shinies in the world mean nothing if the product is priced higher than the buyer thinks it's worth.

Besides which, the human race hasn't spontaneously all developed ADD.That sort of blither is manufactured by tenured professors who never actually show, or do, any actual scientific research, and desk-jockeys who are desperately sweating for an excuse (other than "your product sucks") to give to the Boss at the next board meeting. No, your shiny new ad campaign isn't failing because your audience got distracted by something sparkly; it's failing because people know your product stinks and they're ignoring YOU, specifically. Make it good and make it cheap, and they'll pay attention.

[stryck.livejournal.com]

The miscommunication is because you're thinking of a different type of attention than the linked guy is.

If you spend an hour playing with a small child, your attention has been captured for that hour. It's an hour in which you are not reading a book, doing chores, watching Buffy, or going to work.

Years ago, most of this attention was used up in attending to chores- necessary daily tasks like laundry, dishes, and cooking. Modern life has freed up large amounts of this time, which is now often captured by TV, movies, and video games.

Amazon works better than Borders as a current business model because it costs less attention to buy from them. Why would I go to a store that sells books when I can order them without wasting time driving to another location and back?

Amazon frees up attention I can then use enjoying my new ebook or custom backscratcher or ordered.

The point about Peak Attention is that we're out of time/labor saving devices, so if I want you to devote two hours to a movie, I can't just invent something that allows you two more hours of free time. Instead, I have to compete with the books, video games, work, time with family, etc. I have to give you a compelling reason to pick my item over all that.

[zeeth_kyrah]

Exactly. And how are all these downloads distributed and read?

Primarily through access devices built for and sold by Amazon and B&N. Increased surface area and access improves customer contact, which increases the likelihood of a purchase and thus the overall income.

Anyway, Amazon is limited in its pricing by publishers that insist on prices that don't compete with the physical product. But large publishing houses are no longer the whole of the industry, which is why many independent authors are doing well right now. And those publishers that continue to insist on useless pricing schemes are being out-competed. Those books aside, Amazon has a thriving marketplace which continues to justify the Kindle.

[cat-sanctuary.livejournal.com]

The cost of (publisher-produced) books could be brought into the same range with the cost of (corporate-subsidized) downloads, too...if publishers would move with the times and cut overhead. I'd bet your local print shop would print a 200-page 8.5x11" manuscript for $6 per binder-ready copy. Binding it might drive the price up, but not to $25.

However, I'm asking people to pay $10 for secondhand books in order to cover (1) a $1 royalty to the writer, if living; (2) however many days it takes me to track down a clean copy of each book; and (3) shipping one or two books to each address at each time. If I were publishing my own books (or reprints of other people's, which might be an option) and shipping them in bulk to distributors, they could be cheaper than $10.

Anyway, a real book you can read without having to plug something in and sit through all the little techno-glitches and scroll through ads, *and* look at a blinking box that hurts your eyes, is worth more than a download.

Actually, when I've downloaded books, downloading them may have been subsidized by someone else and may have seemed to be free...but in order to read the books I then have to print them out. The cost of printing out a downloaded book is likely to run up to $10.

[stryck.livejournal.com]

Well, you are, in effect, marketing to a niche market. This is a fairly efficient model providing that you target your resources effectively.