Attention v. Content v. Access Controllers, who wins?

posted by: Joseph Hershey

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Attention is the product of the new economy and Google has firmly monetized it with Adsense context ads and the like. Yahoo?   I don’t know so much about Yahoo.   I don’t Yahoo, and that may be your answer.

Let’s say, though, that I am a parent and I do want to find out some information about Disney’s first Snow White movie — the first full screen animated feature to play in the movie theaters.  I don’t want to buy anything.  I just want to get some reference material so I can complete this blog post.

If I go to Google to find it, either directly or indirectly. What do I get and where does it take me?

Ah, I see it. On the first page, right there. ( The first page, also known as the “front page” for old school media types who remember the newspaper, most likely has what I need to find in order to finish this post. )  Actually, the first link has what I need.  Excellent.  That’s why I like Google.  Easy, right up front results.  ( Not like when I grew up, when men were men and men had to tell the kid to get up and change the channel knob on the television… )

Did I lose you with the embedded parenthetical comments?  That’s not what Google does.  That’s why they win.

And that’s what people who spend their life searching for ways to optimize their information on the web so that they too show up as the first link, are looking for, the first, or the first few links, or at least on the first page or results:

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Search Engine Marketing (SEM), the search of how to change what you’re saying so that the most people can find you based on the methods and techniques / algorithms of a search engine.

Hmm, if I change what I am for you, then you control me = Google dominates.  Give that to your therapist this week…

Enough.  What’s the first link?  It’s a ref to somewhere on the wiki guide to the universe.  Ah, the clear winner for my (conscious) attention.

There’s also mention down below for the likes of imdb, amazon, and ebay.  If I wasn’t writing this post, though, I wouldn’t have really seen them.  No reason.  The winner, then, the first link up top, pretty well describes itself as something that takes me right where I need to go.  The others get honorable mention, and clearly have a few good seo’s and sem’s on their payroll.

Oh, and again, there was Adsense stuff, off to the side of the page.  I don’t think I paid much attention to it, only just enough to check to see if they were there because I was writing this post.  I think, though, if I wasn’t looking for ‘em, I’d still see ‘em, subliminally off to the side, in my periphery, where the subconscious takes over and you can’t talk it out of giving more seen advertisers the reward of brand recognition and uncontested loyalty based on human failures to distracted non thinking and laziness.

But I digress…hmm…guess I lost …

Attention.

Who wins then?  Is it Google with Adsense revenue, or is it Disney, who produced the original content, but didn’t get a chance to sell me anything, or is it the wiki world who tells me what it all means in the form of a seemingly credible encyclopedia for free?

It’s not so clear. Didn’t Disney already win? before I came to search for Snow White? They own Snow White and the dreams of my little girl to be a princess. Seems to me that today, the only cable channel my girl ever watches is 67, the Disney Channel.

Disney gets my daughter’s attention and impacts her self concept of what it means to be a girl, friend, daughter, sister, and person.

Ugh. If you own my daughter’s attention, you own her…you own me.  I allow it where I see it as okay and healthy.  I don’t allow it as her only source for info on how to be.

I think any parent has to hold onto responsibility and power to choose where you girl pays attention and learns.

But, again, I digress…hmm…

Attention.

hmm. Attention v. Content.

But wait, how about the companies that control my access to search and content, the internet service providers?  Don’t they control my access to the toll roads, my bridges, my way to commerce?  Don’t they have prime position to make beaucoup $$$?  Why aren’t they King?

Providers, like Comcast, are big, granted, but their revenues are capped off by fixed subscription rates.  After I pay the Comcast bill, I really don’t care that they exist when I go to find Google, Disney, or the source of what my girl pays so much attention to.

I give them attention once a month, when I pay the bill.  And let me tell you.  That’s bad attention in my book.  Like a junkie paying the dealer — you hate them because they own you.  Oh, they own me. Let me tell you.  I’m on the internet day in and out.

But if they own me why aren’t they the clear revenue winners over Google and Disney?

Government regulation.  Yeah for us!!

And it seems they want the government to step in again too, but this time to help them and their clogged tubes.  I refer you to Network Neutrality on the wiki guide to the universe.  There’s a fight going on right in our own back yard. Who’s got more money for lobbyists and how can we use this to distract from global warming and the war in iraq… It’s a fine time for the Democrats to announce creating presidential exploratory committees.

This fight isn’t dead.  No clear winner yet. Attention v. Content v. Access Controllers.

Hmm, the wiki guide to the unvierse.  I don’t see any Adsense type of distractions there.  How’d they get away with that? Hmm.  How do they show up as first on the list of gotos?  Hmm.  Wikinomics

Hmm, they tell me what things are, what the mean, who I am.

Maybe all wars aren’t fought in the usual mainstream world of capital.

Go figure.

Sorry, but I’m losing attention for the third time, and now I’m out.