The Attention Merchants: The Epic Scramble to Get Inside Our Heads by Tim Wu. He holds an undergrad in biophysics from McGill University and a JD from Harvard Law School. He served as Special Assistant to the President for Technology and Competition Policy. Today he teaches at Columbia Law School.
So, do you know how Madison avenue hijacked the web? Ever consider a time when you searched online for a product, a lawn mower for example. And before you realize that it was only minutes before your facebook feed started popping lawn mower ads into your feed?
Perhaps a Youtube channel is promoting a certain lawn mower vendor is a link pushed into your social media accounts? How many times have you noticed an online brand working into your internet life? In fact, have you even noticed that family, coworkers and friends are also falling victim to the attention merchants? Look deeper with your social media links to and from family and friends.
Tim is revealing for some the very idea that your internet life is under assault. He believes that American business actually depends on how much attention you pay to their messages. From advertising, branding, and even sponsored social media profiles.
Their focus is to gain your attention and put your eyes and mouse clicks on their internet sites. All to sell you that lawn mower.
Attention circa 1870
It also may come as a surprise to many that this is not new. Advertising has been tuning their tools for over 100 years. Call it the drive to gain your attention. Actually Tim reveals how this began prior to the formation of Madison Avenue. He tracks the history of online advertising from AOL to the mobile web.
Tim wrote a brilliant book Who Controls the Internet. His second book, The Master Switch: The Rise and Fall of Information Empires is a wonderful examination how American information empires were established and stifled innovation at the same time.
Attention circa 1870
Along the way you learn how the invention of email is now “an attention monopoly” from Google to Facebook. Yet Tim shows how this began with Ed Sullivan and developed into brands including Oprah Winfrey and Kim Kardashian. This even extends to Apple’s ad-blocking technology on the iPhone. Madison avenue has simply pivoted to new tools and techniques to grab and hold your attention. Perhaps as Tim suggests this mobile technology however is altering our lives. From cognitive to social to political in ways Ed Sullivan and CBS never could have even imagined possible.
Welcome to the Filter Bubble
Perhaps since the publication of this book in 2016, Tim has truly defined how the attention merchants have crafted the filter bubble. This is a state of intellectual isolation built upon personalized web searches tuned by algorithms to deliver selectively curated search results. This is driven by all the data you give away on the web, what data about you is made via data breaches with your own web clicks that define your location, your past click-behavior, and your internet search history to see you a product, drive you to vote for a candidate, or align to specific interests. Why? People love to invest an amount of time to digest free content from their echo chamber: followers, subscribers, all liking the same interests.
Consider this a must read
In conclusion, Tim delivered a powerful book in 2016. The attention merchants have continued to tweak their ‘attention toolsets’ especially during the pandemic. This is an important topic to personal privacy not to be misunderstood.