The Attention Economy of Information

Gone were the days when only the elite could read and the rich and influential had just about enough money to obtain knowledge. Funny how something so important as education was limited and caused the further separation and widening of class. If you didn't know, the first book that went into mass publication is the bible, in the late 1400s. Before that, just another fun fact - monks used to copy by hand in an colorful and artsy manner.

But now, it is different. You probably heard that just recently, the earth now has 7 billion inhabitants. With the increase of better health care and more opportunities, what was once a far fetch concept for free information is happening right in front of our eyes. Because of something magical and something just as equally scary as the internet.

Being able to publish traditionally is to be intrinsic. The barriers of entry is high because the organization has the bear the costs and expenses of printing, store and ship to consumers. However, these publishes often have better economies of scale (producing efficiently) then other small publishers, and often outperform them in terms of sales and larger market share. They maintain the quality. This is the extrinsic value.

However, when weblogs comes into the picture - it becomes a whole new story instead. These writers, or contributors to web spaces such as blogs or personal websites destroy the traditional publishers intrinsic value because they are able to reproduce and distribute for a low, sometimes even no cost at all. There have no limitations, no setbacks and nothing to lose. Weblogs also destroy the extrinsic value by crashing the barrier of filters, which traditional publishing has. When you want to post a though, or create a list - you just do it.

The world now juggles between trying to keep traditional printing alive and yet, giving the whole world a chance to publish things effortlessly. We do not want the hassle of getting our work out there. Prior to the web, people paid for the words they read. Now, whatever we read cost us nothing. We do not have to pay for these materials, and it is destructing the publishing world that we once knew.

I feel that traditional publishers will have to alternate their revenue not by limiting its access on the materials but focus its attention to advertising and sponsorship. Big names generally equal big readerships, and quite an amount of influence over its consumers. The more they block information or force payers to pay, the more micro-weblogs will appear. They could also buy over the popular weblogs, thus having some sort of control over its content and simply worry less about the million other weblogs as they continue to serve some tid bits of information to their friends, families and those who read their blog.