I listen to a couple podcasts and one of my favorite is the Gillmor Gang. I was listening to his latest one when yet again Steve Gillmor mentioned that we should show respect for Earthlink, which he advertises at the beginning of each podcast. The problem isn't that we should have respect for Earthlink, it is his constant reminder at the beginning of every podcast. He needs to let the advertisement stand on its own now, possibly he should diversify to other advertisers. I'm all for advertisements on podcasts and blogs, I have google ads on my site, but I think the advertisements have matured enough that we don't need a constant reminder about them. What needs to happen now is the continuation of the advertisement movement for the correct context. This leads things to intention vs attention and google ads.

Speaking of which Doc Searls put words to a concept I've been trying to describe for a while now. The idea of attention vs attention vs intention. Where advertisers for a long time now have been spending billions to get our attention. Whether its a billboard or TV or spam alot can go into trying to get peoples attention and sell their product. However most of this money seems to me to be wasted, and in fact not only wastes money but wastes time. My time to view an advertisement for a product I will never buy and companies time in creating flashy advertisements to grab such a low percent of buyers who would otherwise not have bought their product where otherwise a very simple promotional advertisement or blurb that they exist would get a majority of their buyers to indeed buy their stuff.

In recent years we have seen two kinds of movements around attention. One side has been the context movement which is things like google advertisements where the advertisement is geared towards the content of the page itself thus perhaps leading to higher click rate. The other side, promoted by people such as Steve Gillmor and others over at attentiontrust.org, is a sort of vault where click streams or previous buys are recorded in a central place and the potential buyers can at their own will allow other companies to find out that information to be able to show advertisements or promotions that are very specific to that potential buyer.

The last piece to this evolution, as I see, is the idea of intention. When I know I want to buy something I can let vendors know my intention of buying something and they can then compete for my business. It can be as little as I am interested in buying an RPG game or a Java programming book or a plasma screen. It can be sorta vague or very specific and depending on that intention I might be a few advertisements and promotions or many. To me this should be where businesses are heading in the future of trying to get buyers.

On a different note reporters may need to watch out for Bush as he may be attacking reporters on the very idea that they report things.

Notable: Chatology