What’s the value of all this attention data?

The value of attention data comes from the fact that it tells companies something about a customer, which they can use to more effectively interact with that customer. However, attention data will always be rough in comparison to what we the customers know about ourselves. Attention data is only based on discrete actions and does not tell the whole story. This is why websites that use attention data to target content and ads often get it so comically wrong.

The interesting thing is that the value of all this attention data simply drops through the floor as soon as there is an effective way for customers to easily share their interests directly with companies and each other. When each individual is in control of their personal interest profile, it becomes less necessary to track personal data and try to intuit what users want. A user can state very clearly what she wants and more importantly what she doesn’t want. This should be the future of targeted marketing.