The Poverty Of Attention 152
There are thousands of working actors, but most of us only have the mental means and technological devices to pay attention to a handful -- names like Cruise, Roberts, Affleck. There are plenty of athletes, but only a dozen or so -- Shaq, A-Rod, Tiger -- are familiar to the public beyond sports fans. The same is true of software or computer games like Quake and Tomb Raider. And in politics, attention consciousness or lack thereof is upending civics. Only a few leading candidates get widespread attention or are considered electable.
And of all the technology companies vying for their dollars, most Americans can only name Microsoft, AOL or IBM.
In the U.S. and other wired countries especially, this reflects a cultural and civic attention deficit. Attention Consciousness is the growing realization that the new economy depends as much on gathering attention as it does on selling particular services, because if the first isn't done, the second becomes irrelevant.
This largely Net-generated change is as important as it is ironic. The poverty of attention is changing society, and is often misundertood. Younger people in particular are often derided as apathetic or ignorant, but the brutal truth is that their new information lives are much more interesting than the old civic and entertainment options.
Social and political activists complain they can't get the media or citizens to pay attention to political issues. This seems indisputably true, but they might do better to learn about Attention Consciousness than to lament widespread apathy. There's a growing mismatch of supply and demand that has already led to a constantly-worsening attention deficit. Most people have no way of processing vast amounts of information effectively; most of us are already confused about how to allocate our attention effectively. Software, people and services that can do that for us are in urgent demand, and they should grow and prosper.
When there is competition, those who seek attention turn to the most reliable magnets: sex, calamity, scandal, confrontation. Everybody paid attention to the Monica Lewinsky scandal, even though it ultimately wound up having little real civic significance beyond the act of presidential impeachment itself. Yet the attention paid to the social impact of the decoded human genome or the global AIDS crisis was a fraction as great. There's been even less focus on new issues involving attention itself. Few people online paid attention to the l996 Digital Millenium Copyright Act bulled through by entertainment industry lobbyists, even though it probably had more direct impact on Net content than any other single act or law in recent years.
This is partly a result of the new Attention Economy we started writing about a couple of weeks ago.
As scholars Thomas Davenport and John Beck found in their book The Attention Economy, every economy has organizational and individual participants, and the attention market qualifies as an economy in that respect. Organizations participate in this economy when they want to attract the attention of customers, partners, investors or employees. But in the new Attention Economy, each individual also becomes a player, especially when it comes to technology. We are all information providers, trying to attract the attention of friends, family members, customers, employers. Those who can gain it -- Jobs, Grove, Andreesen, Torvalds - do well. Those who can't struggle or even disappear.
Attention doesn't automatically mean success, though: Andreesen's business ventures have struggled, as have some of Grove's, and Open Source has yet to reach a commercial critical mass. As wealth is glorified -- and gets attention -- people become hungry for other ideas and ideals, which then also get attention. But not always as much, or as profitably: corporatism is now so inextricably linked to the Attention Economy that it's brutally difficult to compete.
In the Attention Economy, the qualities that lure attention are not necessarily the finest. Sheer brilliance, generosity, innovation or ethical behavior rarely generate much attention. What counts more is impact, utility, timing and presentation.
The hard reality is that there is only so much attention to go around. It can only be increased in small increments, either by stretching humans' mental capacities or by increasing the number of humans on the planet. Just as the Attention Economy concentrates disproportionate attention on a handful of celebrities who know to get attention, it marginalizes everybody else. That means more and more attention will be paid to fewer and fewer people, and information and services will tend to become homogenized for most people. How many different kinds of gasoline, for example, can you actually buy for your car? How different is the programming from one TV network to another?
Talented people have always generated attention -- in the summer, Spielberg and Lucas come to mind -- but they were innovative, successful in creative as well as financial ways. E.T. and Star Wars arrived a bit before the Attention Economy had fully bloomed. Now they all face difficult issues of independence, integrity and compromise. It takes more marketing, more revenues, more of everything to assure a blockbuster now, and the tie-ins surrounding the Star Wars films got nauseating a couple of episodes ago, undermining the credibility of the idea itself. As great as the series has been, it sometimes seems that half the characters were conceived as premiums to be sold with Happy Meals or Whoppers. The Attention Economy is ravenous.
This has enormous implications for technology. Which applications from genome research is the public likely to focus on? Those that promote health and well-being, or those that promote beauty and longevity? Which software merits attention: the genuinely innovative and empowering, or the latest product mass-marketed by Microsoft?
Beyond sensationalism and whorish marketing, how can smaller entrepeneurs, events and products gain attention?
By paying people. Magazines, websites or TV shows could simply offer users a fee to eyeball their products regularly (there are ways to track this) rather than the other way around. Open Source may well be one of the culture ideas that has to pay it's way into the Attention Economy.
And somewhat more obviously, attention comes to things that provide real utility. Customers paid plenty of attention to the car, the Web Browser, the phone and to the Net itself, simply because they wanted mobility or instant communication. Revolution gets attention. But that kind of revolution occurs rarely.
Meanwhile, narcissistic, me-to-me media have become fashionable online, the newest example of the confusion between what's neat and what's significant. As good as many of them are, outside of their creators they don't command much attention. But modern corporations like Microsoft and AOL Time-Warner manufacture attention as much as anything else. They can do this by advertising, by the sales of synergistic products, or by political and media lobbying. They have the skills to manipulate regulators, elected officials and journalists and the money to bombard our consciousness with advertising and marketing. Af if that stops working, they may be the first to start sending us checks.
For hundreds of years, attention has been a luxury or a by-product. Now it's become one of the most valuable commodities in the world. That suggests the people who will be the most successful at gaining attention are those with the deepest pockets to pay for it.
Could someone maybe summarize that for me? (Score:1)
First Moron! (Score:5)
There is only so much attention to go around, and we are being bombarded with more information all the time.
No one with ADD could possibly finish reading a Katz column though!
The part that I'm wondering... (Score:1)
So tell me, is there only so much attention to go around?
Stop keeping us in suspense!
Shields up! (Score:4)
It will be solved by every single person individually.
Next time your TV goes to commercial, mute it, get up, and go get a glass of water. You have just cut off all the meaningless advertisements the TV is pouring at you. It is far easier than Katz seems to think to just ignore the "bombardment" of information. The advertising and media industries have not (yet) tied us to chairs and taped our eyes open, Clockwork Orange-style.
And as someone else pointed out, if there is demand for alternative, someone will provide it. MSNBC and friends have huge pointless affiliate sidebars and banner ads displacing the article text, Slashdot has ONE banner ad per page (and usually better content to boot).
In short, this article attributes far too much power to the media and far too little willpower to the audience. Just walk away.
The only interesting thing Katz says... (Score:2)
(there are ways to track this)
(reread the 4th to last paragraph if you missed this part)
...was the only comment in this entire essay that was interesting enough to be worth my attention out of the 5 or so minutes it took me to read all of it. At yet Katz didn't think it was worth HIS attention any more than the parenthetical that it got.
Re:For Your (Dis)Information (Score:1)
Re:For Your (Dis)Information (Score:1)
=)
Plato vs. the Spootheads (Score:1)
So in the Internet age history is doomed to repeat itself in a matter of hours instead of years. Besides, I have more important things to do like watch Angry Beavers [google.com] than read something about spootheads who have no attention.
I have a question. (Score:1)
Re:I have a question. (Score:2)
Please, Mr. Katz, don't use so many buzzwords. Write in plain english, and you might get some more readers, not people like me asking "What the fuck is that supposed to mean?"
Re:I have a question. (Score:3)
Mistaken premise. (Score:2)
When problems arise with respect to information, it is not information that is the problem. It is attempts by others to control the information that you get that is the problem. I realize that this is a somewhat pedantic point, but if you don't get your terms straight when you start a line of reasoning, the line of reasoning tends to derail into something nonsensical. I think you're onto something here, but you really need to be more rigorous in your reasoning, or your conclusions aren't going to provide us with any meaningful guidance - they'll just be pretty noise.
isn't it ironic? (Score:1)
No, they've got it all wrong (Score:2)
Re:This Article... (Score:1)
http://www.fit2read.com -- shameless plug ;)
http://radio.userland.com/
http://www.vertexdev.com/HeadlineViewer/
http://www.newsdart.com/index.php3
Poverty? Hah! (Score:1)
Re:This Article... (Score:1)
<p>PS-I don't usually have time to post comments because I'm reading everyone else's.
10 rules to conserve your precious attention: (Score:2)
9) if you can't follow rule 10, don't play non-aerobic games.
8) if you fail to observe rules 9 and 10, don't play drinking games.
7) if you blow off rules 8-10, don't play computer games.
6) OK, well, don't play any Sid Meier games.
5) at least don't play first-person shooters!
4) don't have a job or social life.
3) don't even consider having children.
2) don't read any Jon Katz articles
1) DON'T IRC (it causes hairy palms anyway).
--Charlie
attention and info (Score:2)
Now, on with the regularly scheduled program...
Katz makes some valid points. I've noticed this trend on attention also. We are inundated daily with all kinds of attention getting mechanisms to the point where it's just a real pain in the ass to deal with. Everywhere you go your faced with advertisements for one thing or another. It used to be bad enough when it was just consumer items being advertised, but now there's a growing trend for political or religious advertisements put up by anybody who can pony up the money to broadcast to the world their own little assinine message or parrot the trend du jour. On top of this are the seemingly innoculour 'info' advertisements for various technologies (emergent or otherwise). You can't even surf the web without having an irritating pop up ad window crapping up your machine till you can click it away like a perverted version of whack-a-mole. None of it makes me more likely to buy, subscribe to, or get all touch-feely than I was before. As far as I'm concerned the value of a product, idea, or information is in inverse proportion to the attempts to get it attention. If your product is selling well, and making a profit there's no real need to advertise. If your ideology is really noteworthy it won't need advertisements to get it recognized. If your trend du jour is meaningfull enough it won't need the advertisements either. Attention getting simply signals items on the decline.
Let the usual snide frat-boy, aids activist, linux activist, diety activist, etc... responses begin!
Pay Attention? (Score:1)
Oops, wait....
Re:There isn't even a 'Nobel price in economics'. (Score:2)
Then we all agree then, there ain't no Nobel prize given out in Economic Sciences or whatever you want to call it.
I am of course well aware of the honorary prizes, but they are just that, and calling them "Nobel prizes" is wrong.
That was my point.
There isn't even a 'Nobel price in economics'. (Score:3)
ADD (Score:1)
Sorry, I'd have an intelligent conmment, but Jon still isn't paying me to read his stuff. Send me a few dollars via PayPal and then I'll come back.
:^)
A quick summary. (Score:1)
-------------------------------
Only in America will someone order a
Big Mac, large fries, and a Diet Coke.
Re:Information creates MORE attention. (Score:1)
things might seem worse than they really are... (Score:1)
Re:I resent... (Score:2)
And you're right about how ADD is induced by jumping around from topic to topic. I found that I was a far better student in my two-course winter sessions than in my five-course semesters... and the workload:time ratio was about the same for each, maybe heavier for the winter sessions. I think our high school system is a failure for that reason too... You can't expect a kid to take 7 serious subjects plus gym and lunch and work to their peak performance in anything. It's a waste of youth, no wonder the kids all smoke weed today...
Re:I resent... (Score:2)
Not now though. I already started drinking.
I resent... (Score:4)
ADD is a true condition... not a "get out of jail free" card for when you fail to live up to your responsibilities, but a personal problem which must be overcome to achieve goals in life. Many people fail to acknowledge the fact that many people put a lot of effort into overcoming symptoms related to ADD, more effort than their non-ADD peers... but are quick to pounce on someone when they fail to overcome their personal difficulties exacerbated by symptoms of ADD. Again, I'm not saying people with ADD should get special priviledges, but it's not fake, and it certainly is a learning disability that should be accomodated for and not discriminated against - WITHOUT lowering the expectations of the individual. Handicapped people are still expected to do their own food shopping in most cases, but at least they have special parking spaces in front of the store. People with ADD, on the other hand, are routinely fired, kicked out of school, and rejected in social circles for problems related to ADD. Yes, it's unfortunate that kindergarten age children are fed amphetamines at any time they don't behave (yes it works in reverse too... ADD is also applied blithely and mistakenly as a brand to people who don't conform or act as expected), but two wrongs don't make a right.
I know this looks like an offtopic troll, but society throws around the term ADD yet doesn't respect the condition. And the Slashdot crowd is particularly arrogant about such things... I'm about to get flamed and modded straight to hell for this. But I would appreciate it if people would use the word "jaded" instead of referencing ADD in these cases. ADD is serious and I fully resent the overuse and jargonizing of the word. It's exactly why I've had mature, well-respected, well-educated adults scowl in my face when I simply mention my condition as a fact. Please don't encourage that line of thinking.
"Customers paid plenty of attention to the car"??? (Score:1)
Another symptom of this "attention deficiency" is the fact that people DON'T pay attention when driving. Yes, they may pay attention to a pretty car, but one of the most troubling things I have seen in my (mumble) 16 years driving is people becoming less and less aware of their surroundings and paying less attention to the act of driving itself.
NPR had a piece talking about how operating cell phones while driving is dangerous and cited a study on how when people focus on one thing they block out other things. The study was they had students watch a basketball game on a TV and told them to watch the people in the yellow shirts. In the middle of the game, a person in an ape suit walked on the court, pounded his chest for about 5 seconds and walked off. The majority of the people never noticed the gorilla because they were intent on watching the game.
Pay up, sux0rz! (Score:1)
Oh, it's a Katz article. You don't need to read anything more than the first paragraph.
Now where the fuck's my million dollars?
Re:But how can you know what "good" information is (Score:2)
> But that also means that I'm missing 45 minutes [1.5 x 30 days] of valuable information every month.
Not really.
I did the same thing you did - gave up TV news except for business coverage - for exactly the same reaspon.
I don't care about the dippy chick who offed her brood, the hot new cuisine style (that's really just an ad for a restaurant, all footage provided by the restaurant's PR agency), or the "news" that (surprise surprise) once again, there was violence in the Middle East and Balkans today. Sports and Hollyweird gossip are permanently in my mental killfile.
So that's all but the 1.5 minutes of useful information.
But 30 seconds at each of cnn.com (mainsleaze), freerepublic.com (right/libertarian), salon.com (left/liberal), Slashdot (geek), thestreet.com (business), and finance.yahoo.com (news reports on my own holdings) gives me a 99.9% probability that I'll already have seen the 1.5 minutes of useful info on the news that night.
Add onto that a few NASA and science sites, and even if the nightly news does a 90-second segment on Galileo, odds are I'll get far more out of 90 seconds on NASA's site than I will on the evening news, which will burn 60 of those 90 seconds explaining that Galileo is a spacecraft, that Jupiter is a planet, and that Galileo's main antenna is b0rken.
(Cripes, I'm not looking forward to Cassini. When we finally get to Saturn, I'll bet 30 of every 90 seconds of mainstream Cassini coverage will still be about the eco-freaks whining about the RTGs. And another 30 seconds interviewing some guy who remembers protesting it. Gotta get that human interest angle in there somehow.)
I'd argue that it's because mainstream news tries so hard to have "something to draw everyone's attention" that I've turned it off altogether. "Jack of all trades, master of none" doesn't work when you grew up online and want the detailed scoop.
Re:But how can you know what "good" information is (Score:3)
True -- but what are the odds of it appearing on the ultra-filtered TV news?
Freerepublic seems rather like a Republican version of Slashdot without a moderated story queue. It'll often give me coverage of stuff like "man bites dog", "All your base!", and what-not.
> I fear that we're in danger of becoming a world of narrow specialists, none of whom have anything approaching a Renaissance view of the world.
During the Renaissance, it was possible for one person (e.g. DaVinci) to know Everything Worth Knowing. 20 years ago, it was possible to read all the messages in all of USENET. (Even 10 years ago, you could read all the messages in most of the groups you followed.)
That's no longer the case.
> It's not that there is too much information out there, it's that the difficulty in sorting the wheat from the chaff forces us to limit ourselves.
I'd argue that it's both -- even given a magic wand that instantly separates wheat from chaff, there's too much background information you need to assimilate in order to make sense of the new information ("wheat") you've sorted.
Today's Slashdot is a good example -- lots of people posting to this thread, because everyone understands enough about mass media to have an informed opinion on it.
Yet we have very few people posting anything on the artificial heart thread beyond "whoa, cool!" or "How does this differ from that guy with the artificial heart in the 80s", because almost none of us are Biology grads / med students, fewer went through med school, and probably only one or two of them went on to become cardiologists.
Just as most of the general public isn't going to spend the 2-3 years in geekdom to understand why DMCA is a Really Bad Idea, most of us aren't going to spend the 2-3 years in med school to enclue ourselves on the new heart.
Re:THE GREAT A.D.D. HOAX by (David Keirsey ) (Score:1)
Hey, don't take my word for it, take DAVID KEIRSEY's.
He's written some articles.
Re: (Score:2)
For Your (Dis)Information (Score:3)
I beg to differ, most people according to survey's aren't browsing sites like Salon.com, Slashdot.org, Microsoft.com, for things. The majority of people aside from Slashdot'ers, and those involved with some form of computing related work, are searching for things on sites like Yahoo. Many others use the net for learning, many simply browse blindy. To compare above average Internet users is biased.
As good as many of them are, outside of their creators they don't command much attention. But modern corporations like Microsoft and AOL Time-Warner manufacture attention as much as anything else.
It's called marketing, and that's the only way these businesses will survive. What's so different about MS or AOL-TW advertising, than those who come around and leave a menu fliers near your door for their restaurant? If they had the same amount of money they'd do the same. Does it mean they're whoring their restaurant? Everyone does it, and it does not mean every company is a narcisst. Business, it's what makes the world go round.
They can do this by advertising, by the sales of synergistic products, or by political and media lobbying. They have the skills to manipulate regulators, elected officials and journalists and the money to bombard our consciousness with advertising and marketing.
They don't have any skills that others don't possess. They have money, and to state they have money to manipulate politicians although it may be correct, is a bit biased. Companies are companies, if a politician has stock in a company do you think he would honestly manipulate it in such a way to lose on his/her investment? By dealing with people like these, you should point them out, since it has nothing to do with the company entirely. Sure some companies do some back handed dealings, but that doesn't mean all politicians are underhanded scum.
Af if that stops working, they may be the first to start sending us checks.
They already do so via way of rebates, where have you been? There's nothing wrong with doing so either. There is no law against offering someone cash back for trying a product, or offering them rebates. If it makes people happy, all the better more power to the company for thinking it up.
For hundreds of years, attention has been a luxury or a by-product. Now it's become one of the most valuable commodities in the world. That suggests the people who will be the most successful at gaining attention are those with the deepest pockets to pay for it.
Attention will never be a luxury or commodity. Information on the other hand ALWAYS WAS and ALWAYS WILL BE. Companies come and go, bottom line, it's all about who generates revenue. Just because companies like MS, and AOL-TW may have someones attention now, if they disappeared tomorrow, they'll be forgotten due to some other company taking their place. However information is always useful, and always worth much more.
Uh.. No (Score:1)
The same thing happened to religions hundreds, even thousands of years ago. As the religions and sect splintered monks sat in their isolated monastaries poring over specialized texts over particular subjects so that they could be well versed in one subject to the neglect of others. An individual may be an expert in the sutras of the Nichiren School, but ignorant of the basic teachings of the Ch'an School.
Today these people are specialist doctors, lawyers, and programmers. They make good money if their skills are in demand, but suffer when they are not. Society moves on most people still ignorant of anything beyond their immediate concerns.
And so shall it always be.
Re:Nothing new (Score:2)
Kintanon
Re:This Article... (Score:3)
Kintanon
This Article... (Score:4)
It's also true for places like CNN and many other portal sites, it's the reason that portals actually manage to break even and sometimes turn a profit. People like to be able to focus their attention on one thing and get the information they want. If someone came up with a REALLY good, easily customisable portal site they might actually be able to charge directly for access to it. Though I guess that's kind of what AOL does...
Anyways, information concentration is going to be a key area of web development in the future. People who are able to get a lot of information from a lot of places and condense it down into a few pages on one site should be able to make considerable amounts of money...
Kintanon
Please please please (Score:2)
Sorry for the shameless plug, but it seemed really appropriate.
http://www.oomind.com/
Wired talk about this in Dec 1997 (Score:2)
Re:This Article... (Score:2)
Just another anecdotal data point...
Michael Cain
AT&T Broadband
Re:I resent... (Score:2)
If you are constantly jumping from one 'thing' to the next, you begin to be conditioned to expect that. I think that ADD is the result of ONLY being able to deal with that 'jumping', and not being able to STOP and deal with only one thing.
Am I a doctor, no. But it doesn't take a rocket scientist to see a coorelation.
I also don't think drugs are the answer to ADD. I've seen my nephew on anti-ADD drugs, and where he does better in school, he's also not NEARLY has happy a kid as when he's OFF the medication...
Katz! You have redeemed yourself! (Score:1)
Anyways, Mr. Katz... bravo. I really appreciate this piece. It hit home with me.. as I sit here trying to fit more and more windows onto my screen(had to upgrade to a 21" monitor so I could get more windows), I realize my attention is completely consumed.
I get home at around 8pm(long IT style hours), and feed all my attention to my wife and dog until they fall asleep.Thats about 10:30.. then I sit at my computer and feed it attention until about 2am; coding, chatting, surfing, counterstrike, etc. Wake up at 7:30... and pay attention to my hour long commute. Then its work(at least here I don't have to pay attention.. NOT!). Lastly, leave at 7:00pm, hour long commute. Repeat.
Nowhere in there can I say I just "veg out"... I'm constantly having to produce attention, until I finally pass out from exhaustion.
Re:Shields up! (Score:1)
---
Did they wonder the same with Gutenburg? (Score:3)
One has to wonder if the invention of the printing press ushered in the same. The farmers and serfs of the Dark Ages were probably thought too stupid to handle all of the material that came through the new invention of the press.
Oh wait, we got the Renaissance out of that. The growth of media has always corresponded with the development of society, from the clay tablets of the Babylonians and the Sumerians, to the Internet today. Yes, there's a time when people need to get used to this new information onslaught, but it will happen.
Douglas Coupland wrote a book called Joystick Nation that dealt with the fact that "Generation Y" has grown up with this kind of technology, and already has adapted to it. It's just a matter of acclimitization to all this media, something that people in their 40's and 50's didn't have to deal with. It's going to be naturally difficult to deal with all of that, but later generations will be much more adept.
Holy Buzzword Batman! Katz discovered a new word!! (Score:1)
"Lt. Obvious - give them the finger"
Faster (Score:1)
NEW attention economy? (Score:2)
Profound... ok next article please.... (Score:1)
This doesn't make sense.. (Score:1)
Second of all, the fact that only a few people, business, whatever, are famous really doesn't have a whole hell of alot to do with the attention levels of the consumers. Knowing that Microsoft exists and not some other developer is in fact the exact opposite of ADD, If you don't notice all the MS ads on TV, the reviews and hype of the latest windows OS, and the high profile government trial, then your lack of attention is off the chart. Squaresoft for example doesn't get their name in the paper every day, they don't have reviews outside of video game magazines (except now with the movie). Just because people who don't play videogames don't know who Square is or people who don't do high end graphics work don't know who SGI is, doesn't mean that they don't have the required attention to do so.
The same can be said of Tiger Woods. Golf has historically been an old white man's sport, now a young black/thai man comes in and dominates. That flys in the face of convention and get the attention of those not interested in golf. That DOES NOT make Tiger more famous to those who do watch golf than any other high profile golfer, and it doesn't mean that if someone starts watching golf because of Tiger, that they won't be able to follow or remember the names of other golfers.
But perhaps I am taking the whole tone of the article out of context do to your rather unknowledgable use of the word ADD. But then again based on the review I read of 'The last housewife' on amazon, you don't know the difference between a shotgun and a rifle either. I certainly don't want to lower myself to the level of the hordes of JonKatz bashers, but please do try to know the meanings of your words before you write something, that way I don't waste my time reading your dribble when I could be doing something useful. (which by the way is an example of attention WASTE, not attention DEFICIT, after all the attention was there, just not on anything worthwhile)
So Stop Writing Already (Score:2)
Three things (Score:1)
The ADD reference is not helpful. I do not think this article is discussing the possible intersection of many information sources and the medical condition of Attention Deficit Disorder. Rather it appears to be about finding stuff worth looking at and convincing people that your stuff is worth looking at. "ADD" is a loaded buzzword and misusing it in this context does a disservice to those suffering from it and those trying to understand what you have written. Consider your reaction to misuse of the word "hacker".
"There is only so much attention to go around, and we are being bombarded with more information all the time. Most of us have no idea how to allocate our attention widely or productively."
I think this last is at least a partial contradiction. I can allocate my attention widely but it isn't always productive to do so. And vice versa. "Widely AND productively" would be a real trick.
"Those who can help us will be rich."
These people used to be called "editors". How many of them are rich?
But how can you know what "good" information is... (Score:2)
For example, I don't watch TV news any more, because I know that there may be 1.5 minutes worth of "good" information provided to me in a given half hour, but I don't want to waste the time necessary to sit there and absorb all of the other crap they're sending my way.
But that also means that I'm missing 45 minutes of valuable information every month. Even when we use more refined filtering techniques (such as viewing comments in /. by score), there are still many chunks of information that are not "good". But then, there's no way for me to assign normative value to information until I view it, is there?
Sure, I can choose to filter all of my news so that it only relates to primate research in Guyana. But then what if some really interesting "good" piece of info about related research in the human sociology field came up, and I missed it because of my predetermined filtering habits?
Regardless of how you define "good" information, even though it does invite further investigation, the trickiest part is still to find that "good" information without throwing out information that doesn't have an immediate associative value to you but could still turn out to be of value once investigated.
Re:But how can you know what "good" information is (Score:2)
Quite true, and I do the same thing (perhaps with a few variations ;-), but what I was getting at is that in the random, non-yet-defined-and-filtered info, there is sometimes some good stuff. I fear that we're in danger of becoming a world of narrow specialists, none of whom have anything approaching a Renaissance view of the world.
It's not that there is too much information out there, it's that the difficulty in sorting the wheat from the chaff forces us to limit ourselves.
Re:I resent... (Score:1)
I also don't think drugs are the answer to ADD. I've seen my nephew on anti-ADD drugs, and where he does better in school, he's also not NEARLY has happy a kid as when he's OFF the medication...
Drugs are CERTAINLY not the answer, checkout this link to the EVIL PRACTICE OF NARCOTHERAPY FOR ATTENTION DEFICIT by Dr. David Keirsey
http://keirsey.com/evil.html
THE GREAT A.D.D. HOAX by (David Keirsey ) (Score:2)
...I know this looks like an offtopic troll, but society throws around the term ADD yet doesn't respect the condition...
...It's exactly why I've had mature, well-respected, well-educated adults scowl in my face when I simply mention my condition as a fact...
This is probably because ADD has been exposed as just the latest excuse for poor performance in middle class kids.
http://keirsey.com/addhoax.html
People just don't care in the name of Convience (Score:2)
*sigh* This statement contridicts your whole argument Jon. I'm not sure if you are against having so much information or against "big media" ... what's the point? Your statement above is your opinion. Personally I think that people in general in the US, not just young onescould stand to lose a few of their luxuries. Life is more interesting now? When most of us sit around for an average of EIGHT HOURS watching a flashing box??? Come-on!
People don't pay attention anymore to anything because its convienent to be ignorant. People want their little pre-packaged fast-food lives. When it comes to technology people don't choose something better because they can't learn it instantly.
Maybe I'm paranoid but I truely believe that apathy is going to cause the destruction of America. Although maybe that's not so bad :). The funny irony is that Katz himself is a victim. This article runs around blaming everything but the real problem so as not offend anyone. The real problem is that people need to start caring about things that really matter. I know that most people on /. don't do the religion thing but even if you don't that whole "Love thy neighbor" thing can come in handy. Okay getting back on topic :)
The point is that attention isn't a natural resource in limited supply, we can't run out of it. We have to choose at any given point what to pay attention to. The real problem is that people don't care what happens in politics, or society or technology or anything else. We've become so individualized that no-one else matters.
"One World, one Web, one Program" - Microsoft promotional ad
Re:Katz a full-time employee? (Score:2)
"One World, one Web, one Program" - Microsoft promotional ad
Why bother paying attention to most things? (Score:2)
If I took the time to read all of the articles that I comment on on sites like kuro5hin.org, freerepublic.com, slashdot, etc. I wouldn't have anything even resembling a life. I just skim read usually the first few paragraphs, or the whole thing if it is a little interesting but not enough so that I actually want to read the whole thing.
Most of the time I've found that discussions quickly branch off from the article itself and take on a life of their own, discussing issues raised by issues raised by the article. For example on freerepublic.com it often goes from posts where conservatives trash the left and then we libertarians begin jumping down the conservative's throats saying that they aren't much better or different for that matter. The discussions usually then go from being a bash this or that the left loves to being a fight over whose ideology, conservatism or libertarianism, is best able to address the problems of a post-industrial society. So I really don't see the issue here, discussions online aren't static and strictly on topic, they are dynamic and have lives of their own.
Re:Shields up! (Score:2)
Well...what if someone came up with a way to duplicate and reintegrate your consciousness (probably some kind of prosthetic attention), such that you literally could be in two places at once (and, later, remember both sets of experiences)? That'd be a technological fix, wouldn't it?
Granted, it'll be a while before anyone's actually able to do so...
Reminds me of a sermon that I heard. (Score:1)
This reminds me of a sermon that I heard. (The complete text of it can be found here [lds.org].) I know that some of you will be offended by the religous nature of this. If you are among these people, just don't follow the link and you won't have anything to worry about.
This sermon is basically a practical guide to living in an information saturated world.
Re:Shields up! (Score:1)
Slashdotters seem to be in one of two states - (1) totally orgasmically self-satisfied because they are sooooo much smarter than the proles, or (2) blithly assuming everyone is like themselves.
In the case of people having the ability to filter out the McWorld, I fear that (1) applies, slashdotters may actually be 6-sigma deviations from the norm. Pause to pat self on back.
Remember you get as many votes as a subsidy sucking slacker - one. 51% of the voters pay only 4% of the taxes, if you are in the 96%-tax paying, 49% voting bracket, eventually the other 51% of the voting bracket will vote themselves your money. Pause to shoot self
/. owes its existence to ADD (Score:1)
1. go over home page and look for unread story
2. read story
3. maybe read the link in the story
4. post a comment
5. close browser
6. repeat steps 1-5 every 15 minutes.
/. is a symptom of what you speak
Re:Did they wonder the same with Gutenburg? (Score:1)
Its only recently, as in the last few decades that it been the case that there is actually more information coming at any random peasant than they can possibly absorb/accomodate in their lifetime.
--
since this comment itself has no special value, and you are reading it, you need better habits
A problem with human advances in general? (Score:2)
Sir Isaac Newton once said "If I have seen further, it is because I have stood on the shoulders of giants." How many scientists have built on Newton's work? How high is the pyramid of giants upon whose shoulders today's scientists stand? It seems clear to me that the base of human knowledge is becoming extraordinarily large, and more and more of one's life must be spent just catching up to the state of current technology and knowledge.
Almost every time I've read an interview with John Carmack he speaks about how he doesn't really come up with new ideas so much as synthesize a lot of previously-thought-of approaches and ideas and make them work together and come to life on current technology. However, how much more background knowledge will the average 3d programmer need in 5 years than was needed 5 years ago? It seems that eventually we're going to get to the point that people need to spend maybe even tens of years studying their respective fields before being able to contribute anything new to them.
As an example, look at the modern Olympics: we've gotten to the point where almost all Olympic athletes spend their entire life prior preparing for these events; it's nigh-impossible to win or set new records otherwise.
What happens when the same applies to fields of research? Or jobs in general? Will we have to choose career paths during childhood so we have enough time to focus on learning everything we need to know for our chosen profession?
As society becomes more advanced, just about everything requires more background knowledge. As Olympic trainers have seemingly perfected their training techniques, one can only hope that our teaching techniques somehow keep up with the rapid advance of technology.
-Angron
Nobel Prize in Economics - No such thing (Score:1)
The five pizes mentioned in Alfred Nobel's will are Physics, Chemistry, Medicine, Literature (The Swedish prizes) and Peace (the Norwegian prize.)
In 1968, the Bank of Sweden (Sveriges Riksbank) instituted the "Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel" in time for the bank's tercentenary celebrations.
There is a Nobel exhibition on at the Swedish stock exchange building in Stolkholm's Old City until 2002. Well worth a visit.
Never to poor. (Score:2)
But, the piece itself is misnamed. It should be called, "better advertising". This is more about having people pay attention to what you are hawking, not how to get people to pay attention to what is important.
Re:For Your (Dis)Information (Score:2)
The majority of people aside from Slashdot'ers, and those involved with some form of computing related work, are searching for things on sites like Yahoo.
s/yahoo/google/ig;
Same thing, I know, but I prefer to search for things without all of the bells and whistles.
--
Re:Good recent example (Score:2)
Speaking of that, I stumbled into a 'game' put in place by the makers of the movie. If you watch the trailer online, you'll notice this name in the credits:
Jeanine Salla: Sentient Machine Therapist
Using a Google search on that name will launch you into a murder mystery game that spans multiple websites, locations and telephone numbers. Very cool marketing idea -- better than Blair Witch.
Check out this site for more information: Cloudmakers. [cloudmakers.org]
--
Re:THE GREAT A.D.D. HOAX by (David Keirsey ) (Score:1)
What get's our attention (Score:1)
When there is competition, those who seek attention turn to the most reliable magnets: sex, calamity, scandal, confrontation.
It's amazing how those seem to be the best seller's among any form of entertainment and this trend seems to continually grow. Back in the '50's and '60's, when movies stars could act, there was no nudity. You couldn't have "horizontal kissing" for the longest time in movies. Today, if there isn't nudity, most don't believe it was a good movie. If you can count the bullets, most of my friends would think it wasn't worth watching.
Why is this the trend? Why does porn run the world while virtues are not interesting anymore? I don't know, but it doesn't seem to me that we are evolving rather that we are going down hill. Watch what you want, I will stick to Jimmy Stewart and Carey Grant with beautiful women like Kathryn Hepburn and Princess Grace. Those movies had class and were actually interesting.
Re:Pay Attention? (Score:1)
2)Scroll down to the "Exclude Stories from the Homepage"
3)Click the checkbox next to "JonKatz"
There. Now you don't have to burn all your karma.
Damn... (Score:1)
Signal to Noise (Score:1)
If you consider all the data inundating us at any one moment--the radio is on, the TV's on, the phone is ringing, the newpaper is open on the table, etc.--it quickly becomes evident that we are literally swimming in data constantly.
How much of the data that surrounds us is actually useful as information? How do we filter the noise from the signal. With the increase in data surely the signal to noise ration is decreasing, which partially explains our inability to keep track of "stuff."
Now, here is where the literacy part comes in: A truly literate person from this time forward will have to develop a keen ability to filter signal from noise. We can lament the rise of bullet statements as a feature of writing, or the reliance on memory aids (palm computers), or the fast paced editing of television, etc., OR we can accept the fact that the way we communicate has changed forever and adapt. (What is going on right now is no different than what went on during the transition from oral to written communication, or from the written to the printed word.)
It's sink or swim.
Use more of you brain .... (Score:1)
"You're not on trial here...."
Great article. (Score:3)
I started to read this article... (Score:2)
Re:I resent... (Score:1)
- ADD AX, 1
The AX register REALLY IS MODIFIED by this code. The AX register ACTUALLY does get incremented! ADD is a REAL effect people. It's not just random noise, it's a real instruction!Also, with the claim that people with ADD should not get special privileges to overcompensate for their condition, I totally agree. We don't want to start giving away root-access INP and MOV instructions to anybody who has ADD - there should be security checks involved.
We should treat these people the same way we treat people with MMX and SSE.
Oh... you meant Attention Deficit Disorder.... Sorry.
I should have payed closer attention.
-OzJuggler.
Good recent example (Score:2)
The movie A.I.: Artificial Intelligence.
People complain all the time about movies that are "mindless entertainment". This was a movie loaded with subtlety and intelligent themes, yet look at the number who knock it as "slow", "boring", "too long", etc.
While clearly not a perfect movie (Spielberg shouldn't have made the transition from the second act to the third act look like an ending, which set people up to think it should have ended there), it was a movie that encouraged thinking. Even the so-called "sappiness" was loaded with hidden meaning, which the average movie goer just dismisses as "tear jerker moments".
By the way, if you're one of these people, see it again. There is a lot more below the surface.
--
Contexts rich and poor (Score:3)
We are natively evolved for the highest-density information environments. As environments have been simplified by the orderliness of civilizations (e.g., a slave whose life is only in the kitchen, a serf confined to the lord's lands and forbidden the lord's right to hunt, a child in an American grade school), there have been adjustments in enculturation whose role is to make us - by nature intensely alert and curious - fit the constraints of servitude; constraints often dressed up as and justified by religion, ideology and mass entertainment. (The high point of civilization may have been feeding the Christians to the lions for the good of Rome.)
The good news: our cultures are less dependent on servitude than before, more allowing, even encouraging and dependent on, individual freedoms. The good news is also that by our nature we can handle a density of information far beyond our typical modern environment. The bad news: we've only begun to untangle the centuries of cultural adaptation that fit us to information-poor niches characteristic of servitude. This adaptation is displayed in our uncomfortable, neurotic responses to both wide-open freedom and information-rich contexts.
The mentalities we need are those of our distant, more information-rich past: shamanistic, taoist, certain strains of buddhist thought regarding navigating by attention and intuition, more polytheistic or pantheistic than monotheistic, polyvocal rather than TV-announcer-as-scientist monovocal authority. But this isn't the first time we've turned back that way: the Renaissance consisted largely of a revival of older polytheistic insights and alchemies, coinciding with the demise of serfdom and constraints on travel, and the rise of trade and communication.
So all we need is a new renaissance. Simple, really. Our nature can handle rich information environments, it's just a cultural shift - real work, but far more doable (and less dangerous) than either altering our biology with cybernetic implants, or restricting information to accord with the constraining fit of our current neuroses.
Re:I have a question. (Score:2)
Strangely, I had no problem reading it.
Although the writing style is more complex than you typically find in tech journals. Note that it is not the content that is more complicated, but the style is.
For Example, instead of writing this:
Attention Consciousness is the growing realization that the new economy depends as much on gathering attention as it does on selling particular services, because if the first isn't done, the second becomes irrelevant.
he could have written this:
Attention Consciousness comes about because business people are starting to notice that people have their limits. People have only so much time to spend online, or watch TV, or whatever. People have limited bandwidth. The New Economy depends on getting control of that bandwidth. The New Economy depends on getting control of this limited commodity, the amount of time that people have to spend looking and gawking at stuff. If people are not even looking at your stuff, then you never have the chance to make a sale. You never have a chance.
Now I understood the firsat passage just fine. I rewrote the second passage by taking some of the background ideas and making sure they were more easily understood.
In other words, I dumbed it down. The sentences are shorter, and each sentence usually contains only one concept. Note that these seven sentences are used to convey the same idea that the original one sentence communicated. I would have to spend some time to polish it up.
Personally, I like it better when something is not dumbed down for my consumption.
Check out the Vinny the Vampire [eplugz.com] comic strip
Re:Information creates MORE attention. (Score:2)
This is not always true.
You also run into the phenomena of Thing X that you are trying to understand is based on ten other things. If you do not have those other things nailed down properly, this sabotages you down the road. This leads to clueless MSCE techs who cannot apply what they know.
For Example, a network tech who has never even built a machine or spliced a wire. Or has never once done basic hexadecimal math
If you are jammed up trying to understand something, you need to be able to figure out the missing piece of the puzzle.
You do have alot of folks who try to skim over things skimp on things skip things that are not important. And every once in a while, you get bit in the ass by this.
The screaming in frustration you describe is a perfect symptom of this. It is not attention deficit, unless the attention deficit is the fact that you did not pay attention in the first place.
Of course being able to spot your own blind spots in technology or whatever is a difficult task, because alot of folks won't own up to it. This is a bit foolish of course, it is what makes you or breaks you.
Check out the Vinny the Vampire [eplugz.com] comic strip
Artificial Attention (Score:1)
One solution to the attention shortage is Artificial Attention. It is exemplified by a search engine driven by a user profile that biases the search toward the user's interests. Further, the user profile would watch the user's behavior as he peruses the results of the search and modify the profile based on the user's behavior.
The dynamic behavior of the user profile would include a random factor to retrieve information marginally related to the profile. The profile would then watch which of the randomly retrieved items attracted the user's attention and modify itself accordingly.
The profile should be able to monitor the activity of similar profiles belonging to other users to create artificial word-of-mouth.
User could swap profiles with friends to expand their horizons and to build up a community of interests.
Similarly, groups of users could combine profiles to retrieve a common set of information.
A user could adopt and modify standard profiles or incorporate them into his existing profile. These profiles would be based on things of interest to a particular industry, profession or hobby. Organizations might promolgate standard profiles for users to adopt.
If attention becomes the foundation of the New Natural Economy [firstmonday.dk] then information might be packaged to conform to the requirements of the standard profiles. There could be an ancillary program to the user profile that rates pieces of information on how attractive it is to a standard profile.
Similarly, users might compare their profile with a standard profile to see how closely their interests are to the norm.
Ultimately, people will have life-long profiles that change overtime and that thereby constitute the intellectual history of the individual. Users will be able to quantify how much they've changed between childhood, when their profile was created, and old age.
Ultimately, user profiles of great men would be archived and made available for users to incorporate into their own profiles. Cult leaders might impose their own user profile on their followers as a way of controlling their thoughts.
Users might specify on their resumes what standard profiles they use as a way of indicating their interests to potential employers. Strangers could compare their profiles to see how much they have in common.
The first step is the creation of an ISO standard for a Profile Markup Language (PML). This standard would enable profiles to interact with search engines in a well-defined way, enable comparing profiles, enable merging profiles, etc.
You're not alone... (Score:2)
Not quite there (Score:2)
If this is true, the why do so many dang people read slashdot? I've never seen an ad for it, I don't find it a particularly well designed as a website, and they sure as heck are'nt paying me. It certianly has'nt 'homogonized' and generally stays close to it's intial purpose.
In the 'information economy', ultimatly, the only thing that will keep peoples attention is quality. The net is different from things like television or gas insofar as the resources needed to produce and distribute information are so small. Nobody has to get stuck with an information provider that caters to the lowest common demoninator.
And how do people find out where the good stuff is? In the end, word of mouth. A freind told me about Slashdot. I discover most of the websites I visit through word of mouth, or through 'portal' sites like Fark [fark.com].
And after a while, when we no longer have time to search out the best information, we will search out the best places that tell us where the information is ... and nobody will have to pay us.
It started a long time ago... (Score:1)
This is really nothing new. It seems apparent to me that for the past 100 years, capitalist[1] interests have been intent on capturing and monopolizing the attention of the general public. They don't need an "information society" to get it done, either, though it does make things much easier. As John Taylor Gatto [johntaylorgatto.com], former NY State Teacher of the Year, said [primenet.com]:
And we wonder why so many people have "mental illness."
[1] I'm not a raving Communist or anything, I just call 'em how I see 'em. Capitalism by its nature will seek maximum profits. What better way to maximize profits than brainwashing children into buying your product?
Re:It started a long time ago... (Score:1)
And when the best use of a company's time, effort, and property is to condition minds to be more easily swayed?
Or you could leverage the compulsive power of the state, as corporations have done with forced schooling. Children are now literally captive audiences for a 12-minute commercial called Channel One. Capitalism has wrought this travesty.
Re:First Moron! (Score:2)
How prescient - only 6 years late (Score:2)
Given the growth curve of information, content_had become a commodity product, and was going to overload anybody who tried to keep up in any industry. Context, however, was going to become a huge industry, if someone could find a way to make it work. Being able to find the right/relevent information for your information consumer(s), in a realistically useful amount of time, would be huge. It still is - notice that most of the online "information" sites you read today are not producers of information, but aggregators of it. Yahoo started out well because they provided context and organization to something people didn't understand - and it's still their core business.
Like I said, the train has left the station. Tell me something I wasn't speaking at Seybold about 5-6 years ago.
Those who can help us will be rich... (Score:3)
-- .sig are belong to us!
All your
Information creates MORE attention. (Score:2)
This shows that Nobel-Prize-winning economists are not always right.
Good information requires attention, but it creates more, and better, attention. Good information pulls our minds out of the chaos surrounding us. There is then more attention, and less chaos.
Jon's New Ekonomiks (Score:4)
Beyond sensationalism and whorish marketing, how can smaller entrepeneurs, events and products gain attention?
By paying people. Magazines, websites or TV shows could simply offer users a fee to eyeball their products regularly (there are ways to track this) rather than the other way around. Open Source may well be one of the culture ideas that has to pay it's way into the Attention Economy.
Consumer: I'd like to rent these, please. (places three DVDs on counter) ...nine, ten, eleven... ...damn. (puts money back in register)
Clerk: OK, sir, that'll be twelve dollars and fifty cents. Just a minute here...(clerk starts counting bills, placing them on counter)
Clerk:
Consumer: Ooh, shiny thing! (starts wandering away towards front door)
Clerk: Wait, sir! Sir! Fifteen dollars! Twenty? Sir! Sir?
Re:Information creates MORE attention. (Score:2)
How much time have you dedicated today to reading Slashdot ... and how much to your vocation / studies / whatever? How much information have you absorbed (from any source) compared to how much you have used?
Its all very well becoming a pool of information, but that only helps trivia players. To be useful, information must be processed into knowledge, a transition which requires time and practice. To realise the usefulness of knowledge, it must be practiced in an rewarding manner. The reward may be of social, psychological or economic benefit (or others).
The "information overload" phenomena is becoming an increasing problem, especially for "techies". It is no longer an option to be a well-rounded guru - there is simply too much information to absorb, and not enough time for understanding or realisation.
These guys have hit the issue bang on the nose. In a race to keep up with information, you cannot realise the benefits that are supposed to come from keeping up.
The psychology of the problem is closely related to Attention Defecit Disorder. This is often cited as a "learning disability" and is common in "underachievers", but those are dangerous terms: an "underachiever" is anyone not meeting their estimated potential, and can be a straight-A student (I know several such cases). ADD is aggrevated in bright kids by lack of stimulus; ADD is aggrevated in other kids when they are unable to keep up with the pace of learning, and cannot comprehend the new information.
"Other kids" grow into "other adults", and make up the bulk of the population. Continual assualt with new information renders them unable to keep up - yet they know that in order to succeed in their careers they are expected to. A host of social problems result, not the least of which is attention disoders.
Ever screamed in frustration because you've been trying to wrap your mind around something for an hour, and can't? That's not attention - its attention defecit, unless you're really incapable of understanding the concept.
"Bright adults" can suffer from the same problem if they are experiencing pressure to stay ahead of the curve.
The surest sign of information ADD is the greater tendency of information workers to abuse Internet privlidges at work. While most would hardly consider a whole host of other entertainment possibilities, they cannot resist the lure of the Internet, even though it can cost them their jobs. Unable to concentrate on their work, they "go surfing" and end up aggrevating the situation. How many days have you "got nothing done"?
Let's put it this way ... I'm at^H^Havoiding work right now ...
Re:This Article... (Score:2)
Before ./ I was happy not knowing. Now I must forever fret about Microsoft, the GPL, my privacy and my Rights Online! Not to mention whether I'm being cloned, invaded by nanobots, or threatened from ECOs in space.
Re:People just don't care in the name of Convience (Score:2)
And you just contradicted yourself! If you have to make a choice on what to pay attention to, you are are making a supply & demand decision. You can only supply so much attention to the increasingly overwhelming demand for attention in the post-industrial world we live in. This is Katz's point, and I think it's a good one.
You are right on the religion thing, and 'loving thy neighbor', because this promotes selflessness. Because there is so much demand for our attention, many people in their natural human state turn their attention towards themselves and attempt to please themselves. This usually does not benefit others as you are focusing on getting the most for 'me', not the most for others. Caring about 'the things that matter' involves putting others needs and wants above your own.
Your nick indicates your unfaltering belief in Christianity, which indicates to me that you believe that Christ died to pay the price for the world's sins (selflessly), and therefore we are to do the same for others. If this is so, then the demand for our attention by companies is obviously going to detract from the amount of time that we can 'focus on the things that matter' as you so put it. This begats the argument that indeed, Katz's quoting the economist as saying: "What Information consumes is rather obvious: it consumes the attention of its recipients. Hence a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention." is right on target because it means that our current deficit of attention is causing a lack of caring, apathy in general, and a greediness that will continue to get worse if we are to be bombarded by an ever increasing amount of information.
I'm obviously not flaming you, just trying to correct you're slightly flawed (incomplete?) argument.
Re:Shields up! (Score:2)
Except for the programming itself, which is in many ways a more effective advertisement than the commercials are.
Consider merchandising tie-ins, product placement, and crossover shows, for starters. That's just scratching the surface.
online brand names are almost meaningless (Score:3)
One thing I love about the net is that attention is focused on only the best site which fits my need(s) at the present time. The minute a better one comes around, my attention goes elsewhere. Brand names mean nothing to me. Loyalty only lasts as long as the best service is provided to me for free...
3 examples
- news
For about a year and a half, my one and only source for news was wired.com and I used to read it daily. Then a couple months ago I descovered that slashdot was both more interesting and more informative. From that point on wired was completely out of the picture... I rarely look at it now where as I read slashdot daily.
- searching
The search engine of the day is google. But do we, as users, actually care about the google name? I really dont think so.. The day that another search engine provides me with a better service than google does is the day that I never use google again.... I have seen this phenomenom change what search engine I use over and over again in the past few years I have been connected to the internet. From yahoo to infoseek to metacrawler now to google. (and yea there may have been better engines to check out, i just didnt know about them).... do I really care about any of the services that I no longer use? the answer is no. I care about google right now because it is the hightest quality search engine right now... tommorrow, next week, next month or whenever a new search technology comes out that provides me as a user with a better product, google is going to be forgotten...
- mp3s
napster is forgotten... the minute they stopped providing a high quality free service was the minute they were gone... nobody but the media cares about what they are doing now...
In conclusion, this "best of the moment" attitude works extremely well and encorages innovation never before seen in mankind.... its an exciting future...
Re:Shields up! (Score:2)