Who owns your attention anyway?

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Too deeply buried in the (very interesting) discussion here  and here bout how hard it is to get enough traffic to a website to make it generate big money is a more provocative question, to wit:

Who owns YOUR attention and how much is your attention worth?

Big players are making huge profits reselling your attention in the form of placing targeted advertising while you search and surf for info. I have no complaints about that in principle (in fact I feed my kids from that!) , and even agree, somewhat reluctantly, with the assertion that advertising can often enhance the search experience by providing you with sales info on products related to your searches and surfing.

However I’m not sure the power curve is properly placed right now. Rather the big players like Yahoo, Google, MS call most of the shots and reap most of the profits while we, the little sheeples, use their (good) services, often at no charge. It’s certainly a win-win scenario for most, but you can make a strong case that Google, as the big recipient of the big bucks, wins more than you do. Frankly though I don’t know the equation here – what am I worth to Google or Yahoo or MSN?

Over at Battelle’s during a discussion of Microsoft’s new plans to pay big users to use MS products a reader suggested it would take over $50 per month for him to switch to MS search rather than his preferred Google. This raises a very interesting question about what he’s worth to them. I wrote over there:

Pay to use may be the shape of things to come as users begin to realize that they, and not the big players, are the key to internet success. Yaacov’s point is key – would he really want $600 annually to use MS search? If so he’s not typical. I bet you could get most people to abandon Google in favor of LIVE (which is close, but not as good as Google), for $50 per year or less.

In fact I bet you could get most people to switch engines for $10 per month and some for $5 or less. Why don’t they do it? MS had plans and I think they eventually will try this “pay to search” model, which is strong and moves closer to the user ideal of owning their own attention.

When you sell my attention to the highest bidders, shouldn’t I get a piece of the action?

Another related NYT Article

Poli techs may rule the 2008 election?

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In 2004 the internet was credited with much of the early success, and even the later flame out, of the Howard Dean Campaign, though it was not considered a major factor in the Kerry or Bush campaigns.

Fast forward to the already hopping 2008 presidential campaigns where most observers, including the New York Times are suggesting the internet will play a significant strategic and marketing role for most if not all candidates vying for the US Presidency.

Who would benefit most from a “web centric” campaign system? Hard to say since onliners, especially those who blog regularly, are a curious blend of outspoken conservatives and liberals (I’d say more conservative banter on average).

At first glance it seems Barack Obama would have the online edge as he is arguably the most charismatic, young, and hip candidate and should play well with the young internet audience. However in an election the blog banter will probably drive the discussion of the candidates and it’s hard to predict how well prominent blogs like DailyKos or Drudge will process candidate information.

The transparent right wing bias of Fox News pales in comparison to bloggers like Anne Coulter or Michelle Malkin whose “frothing at the mouth” style is fun too read but hardly generates the intelligent reflection that best serves the democratic process.

However, elections aren’t won on deep reflection or discussion of issues. They are now based largely on careful modelling of primary states combined with targeted negative campaign ads on television combined with superficial media analysis of small gaffs or personality quirks.

Maybe a political technology injection is just what Doctor Democracy has ordered.

The Perfect Storm * * * 3/4

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This excellent film from 2000 really seems to capture the feel of the east coast fishing life and contains excellent, but not overdone, special effects. Based on the real story about a huge Atlantic storm the film follows several fisherman as they head out to sea.

The performances are uniformly excellent with George Clooney, Mark Whalberg, John C. Reilly, and William Fichtner as crew on the Andrea Gail.

Fixed mindset vs Growth mindset = Microsoft mindset vs Google mindset?

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Google’s legendary success, especially in light of Microsoft’s lackluster performance, leads one to wonder about the differences at these two techno behemoths.

Stanford Magazine has a nice feature on the work of Carol Dweck on personal achievement. Here is a summary of the work in a single diagram.

Perhaps the big difference between Google and Microsoft is that the Google culture inspires what Dweck calls a “Growth Mindset”, which the MS culture inspires the “fixed mindset”.

Supporting this model is the idea that where MS seems to ignore criticism Google often embraces it. Also, Google remains open to change – flexible – while Microsoft seems to resist change or even force square pegs into round holes with bloated or “bad fit” applications. For Google, the modifications to the world view are reflected in Google products. This leads to the simpler, more friendly technologies Google is known for.

Meanwhile the MS products rely more on their virtual OS monopoly, big businesses reluctance to change, and their sheer size which allows them to move the market.

Where does Yahoo fit in all this? (disclaimer – I have Yahoo stock) . I think they are the sleeper here, with a culture and people that have the potential to adopt the growth mindset but are currently stymied by market forces and the Google glow.

Related:  Scoble today bashes his ex, Microsoft, for talking BS before action.

Travelers Advantage is a Traveler’s DIS advantage

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It should be called Traveler’s DisAdvantage

I’ve had really bad results with Travelers Advantage over many years of membership. The only reason I stick with this horrible service are the “bribe” rebate coupons they send each year when I threaten to cancel. These roughly cover the cost of this horrible travel service but it’s time to get rid of it. I think the “hotels at half price” may still be about the same as online pricing if you have the time to mess with it and make a lot of calls but their call in reservations system is scandalously expensive given that you are *paying them* to find deals. I’d like a *single example* of TA beating Hotwire pricing for comparable hotels or a few examples of them beating out a Kayak.com hotel search.

Example: Booking for a specific Days Inn in CA today I was getting many different rates. I called TA and asked them to match the online price. Nope, they said, and suggested deceitfully that they were using “real time” rates and probably I could not get the lower rate. Travelers Advantage had $75 plus taxes where my initial search gave me $67 including taxes. I pulled up their “low price guarantee” and read it to the customer servicer who just kept insisting on the high rate. Although it’s possible they would have eventually refunded the difference I’ve seen such “guarantees” before and they often try to take advantage of loopholes and BS. I didn’t want to book and then hope to get justice months later.

So… back to Days Inn website which had even lower rates than earlier (or I missed an option there), so I went ahead and booked at 204+tax for the 4 nights vs the 300+tax I would have paid Travelers disAdvantage.

But here’s the funny part: After I booked at Days a chat box came up saying ‘hey, would you like to save $30 on today’s reservation? Sure I said. Up came this: “JOIN TRAVELER’S ADVANTAGE!”

I explained I’d already joined and they gave me a higher rate than I’d got -literally- one second ago from this website and asked why.

She never answered me, just disconnected. Sad, but at least I got my good rate in spite of all the wasted time with 1) My existing Travelers Advantage Membership and 2) Another prospective Travelers Advantage Membership.

PT Barnum would be proud of you, Travelers disAdvantage, because you, like he, act on the knowledge that a sucker is born every minute.

Girl Scout Cookies are a great donation – not a bakery scandal

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The Girl Scout Cookie economy is substantial.    I’m still looking for data but it appears to be an economy of …. get this … about seven hundred million dollars annually.    Given that they are only selling the boxes for a week or so per year I think we may want to cut GSA loose on ideas for balancing the federal budget by increasing cookie sales.

Source for 200 million boxes

At $3-5 per box I was concerned that the cookie company might be exploiting the Girl Scouts because cookie sales to people, as economists like to say, have fairly inelastic pricing that is not really subject to market conditions.   You pay what they charge and consider it a good deed.  Obviously the cookies don’t cost much to produce based on market driven pricing for similar products at the supermarket.

But it appears the baker generally gets under $1 per box and the rest goes to the very good cause of GSA as I learned from this great breakdown on the Lac Baie Girl Scouts website.

Cost per box at this council: 3.50

Cookie Company–85¢

Troop–48¢ – 65¢

                        -day and overnight trips

                        -service projects

                        -camping events

                        -special programs and activities

Incentives–22¢

Support Services to all Troops/Girls–$1.87

                        -Financial assistance for girls

                        -Subsidize council sponsored program events and activities

                        -Adult volunteer and older girl trainings

                        -Outdoor education, camping and programs

                        -Maintenance of two camps and a program center

                        -Membership publications

                        -Travel opportunities for girls and adults

I also learned that each council sets their price and negotiates independently with the baker.   Not sure why though.   Here in Southern Oregon $4 gets you a box.

Therefore – you can feel comfortable buying more Girl Scout Cookies!

Disclaimer:  We have a scout in the house 

Backyard NeXT Cube | San Jose

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Backyard NeXT Cube | San Jose

Originally uploaded by ldandersen.

This is a great picture and concept by Ian Anderson of a NEXT Computer, Steve Jobs project that was once hailed as the next big thing, valued at about $15,000 way back in the day of 1980s….. It’s sitting in a lawn now, worthless except as memorabilia of digital days gone by.

Unlike many other “heirlooms”, old computers tend to drop 90-99% of their value after only a few years. Better, faster machines crop up faster than you can order a new PC from Dell.

I think this is important not just as a noteworthy “computers lose value”, but also as a bellweather of the new digital economy where *things* are not really valuable, rather it’s the things *abilities* that are valuable and the abilities are rapidly improving

Viacom “Austin Powers” to Google: We want ONE BILLION DOLLARS!

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Viacom has sued Google/YouTube for copyright infringement, filing papers today and asking for a billion bucks in damages. The Viacom Press release summarizes their point of view. In short Viacom says of YouTube:

Their business model, which is based on building traffic and selling advertising off of unlicensed content, is clearly illegal and is in obvious conflict with copyright laws.

Here’s the Reuters Story

Mark Cuban warned about this type of legal challenge overwhelming the YouTube deal several months ago.  Here’s his take on the latest news.   It seems possible Google may wind up regretting their purchase of YouTube, proving to be a hornets nest of potential litigation that seems to be increasingly expensive. This while it remains unclear how well YouTube content can be monetized, to the extent there is much left after all this litigation. Google allocated about 400 million of the 1.65 billion purchase price to settle these claims but if the Viacom lawsuit it any indication it may get more expensive than that.

Ultimately I’m guessing it’ll be judges reaction to the new ethos surrounding IP law. Onliners big and small routinely disregard many longstanding content distribution rules so judges may decide that the legal issues have become so universally murky that they’ll start ruling in favor of the new media distributors like YouTube/Google, though I’m guessing the first sets of judgements will seek to penalize them in the name of respecting existing copyright laws. The swirl of legal challenges to YouTube content may be a case where Google’s freewheeling, usually innovative approaches come back to bite them, but it’s too early to know.

Stock Spam Messages: SEC study suggests you should follow their bogus advice for profit?

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The SEC is cracking down on stock price manipulations where spammers send out millions of email messages implying a stock is going to rise. Presumably the spammers have bought calls on the stock or own shares and then reap benefits if the price goes up from the fake interest created by the bogus emails.

But this raises a darn interesting question. If these manipulations really are working to inflate the price of certain stocks artificially – and they appear to be working – then the best course of action for Joe average investor may be to…wait for it…. BUY those darn spam STOCKS!

Some caveats would obviously apply here – you’d want to make sure you are 1) Not doing anything illegal yourself, so you’d never send out the spams or hype the stock yourself. 2) Buy early in the process before the price spike happens. Heavy internet users probably are the first to get the spam, though you can also check this interesting site, Spamnation, for details about the latest spam scams.

I’m testing this hypothesis without buying anything by following some of the stocks listed at Spamnation. Heres the COB.F chart which suggests the spam may have worked wonders on the price.

However CAU, with less spam and more recent activity, is up only a penny today and appears to have been falling recently, suggesting the spam did not work or didn’t work yet.

If, as the SEC crackdown suggests, stock spam scams are artificially inflating the prices of stocks, it may actually be to your advantage to *follow* the bogus advice even though it’s a bunch of illegal lies and deceptions.

Isn’t that … funny?

Brain scans yield key first step to … reading your mind.

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A provocative experiment in Germany raises questions about the future of keeping our thoughts private and even free will itself.   Researchers have been able to predict, with modest accuracy, the *intention* of a person to complete a mental task.     Predicting physical actions with brain activity has been done before but this appears to be the first example of predicting mental activity from brain activity as measured by MRI.

Here’s the story

The implications are significant both philisophically and in practical terms.    What exactly is “free will”?   If our decisions are effectively made *before* we actively process the information then what exactly is in control of our thoughts and actions?      If your future “decisions” are simply a product of a bunch of your past thoughts and behaviors then you may be a lot more predictable than you think.

From a practical side this could make for a marketing dream world (or nightmare world?), where persuaders in advertising or politics would tailor the message to your specific brain activity, or even try to “short circuit” activity in their favor.

Hmmm – I suddenly feel compelled to vote Ray Kurzweil for president …