What matters is to monetize attention!

Response to 'Attention economy'

 

As long as individuals have interesting contents, they compete with any big companies on the Web. That is a key tenet of ‘Attention economy’ and growing popularity of blogs is a good example of the concept.  However, survival of any web site or individual blog depends on monetizing the attention. Moreover, information barrier still exists in production of high quality contents in news media sectors even on the Web.

The relationship between attention and monetizing is similar with a relationship between revenue and profit. While revenue growth is an important indicator to predict the future success of the company, the revenue growth does not guarantee the survival of the company in the market place without increasing profits. In an extreme case, selling one item with a profit of $1 is better than selling billions of items with minus profit or loss. However, future investors are more attracted to business models selling billions of items than the business models selling only a few items because it is easier to grab the public’s attention with the seemingly promising number.

In light of that, the way of monetizing attention on the Web is more important task for individuals or companies to survive on the Web. For instance, despite the fact that there are many blog journalists, it is rarely found that they run their blogs only based on the profit generated by their blog postings. ‘Backpack journalism’ can surely be achieved on the Web, but it cannot succeed without a successful business model to ensure the backpack journalism in the long run.

Moreover, information barrier still exists in producing a high quality of contents in Web journalism. Popular blogs are found in the area of soft news, such as cooking, culture, sports and entertainment. In those areas, subjective critique on news items is appealing to the public. The success of Yelp.com is a good example showing that anyone can be a commentator on reviews of restaurants, for example. In those areas, creating interesting contents is not dependent on information, itself. However, there are areas requiring a high degree of information access; foreign policy, defense and health care. To be successful blogger journalists in those fields, information disparity between blogger journalist and traditional journalist matters in producing a high quality of contents. But, the access to information in those fields is mainly restricted to those with a credential of traditional news media.

I believe that those two problems, such as monetizing attention and information disparity, are the key issues to be solved for citizen journalism models from the perspective of economics. Voluntary blogging cannot count as a successful journalism model in the long term.