Attention Websurfers: How to profit from Attention Trading

By Suzette Gardner

Welcome to a New Year with refreshed goals and old concerns! Online Marketers internationally are gearing up to take their business to the next level. To do so they need you, the Web surfer to pop by, enjoy the content, enter the contests, download and unload your thoughts and preferences—in short, create that virtual foot print that makes it easier to target you online and off.

It’s no secret that the true value of one’s online experience is the information we leave behind for Marketers to better “serve” us. They collect this information and use it to boost their own reach into our pockets and lives. The “next level” usually involves selling our profiles to those with the wherewithal to do even more. Sure we get great products and an improved customer experience, but where’s my real cut? The folks at attentiontrust.org are working on it, but they need you to join them in bringing home our collectively bargained bacon.

Attention Trust is currently a non-profit organization that helps Web users control their online footprint or “attention”. Your social networking habits, search and transaction histories are all examples of “attention data” we leave behind; but install the Attention Recorder (“ATX”) and you will begin the journey to deciding which company gets to store your information and use it. You’ll need Firefox browser to use ATX, which records all your online activities and stores a report on your computer. Perhaps for the first time you will be able to analyze some of the data others use to build a marketable profile of who you are. While the ATX allows you to store and manipulate your data, you also have the power to exchange it with other Attention Trust Approved Services.

The dream is that with more people joining this movement, we will all have the clout to command the respect and marketing dollars we deserve from our own profile. Going are the days when Web surfers feel obligated to “agree” to one-sided terms and conditions where Web site owners get to keep all the pluses from our profiles. So how can the Caribbean (and any other) tech and online marketing community leverage this inevitable movement? Well for starters we can look at creating Attention Brokerages. Don’t laugh. If this movement really catches on, there will be a need for larger entities to trade attention on the individual’s behalf. Are you ready to get in on Attention Trading?