Attention+Economy

= Attention Economy & Kickstarter = toc

History of Attention Economy
The term Attention Economy was coined by Nobel Herbert Simon in 1971 who identified attention as a scarce and most important driving force in new economy. According to Simon, The rapid growth of information courses scarcity of attention (as cited in Iskold, 2007).The internet is filled with information and we can pay just as much of our attention on a particular topic.Because of this information explosion, we no longer read - we skim (Iskold, 2007).Due to the overload information on the internet, online retailers must provide customers the content that is relevant to them otherwise they will lose them and therefore the money. For this reason in the Attention Economy it is essential that the retailers keep customers happy and therefore earn money (Iskold, 2007).We are moving to an entirely new era different from traditional factory mass production of material items such as money, prices, laws of supply and demand, we now have to think in new economy terms (Goldhaber, 1997).

According to Devenport and Beck, the fundamental principle of economy is that the currency has to be scarce (Davenport & Beck, 2001)//.//Due to the emerge of new technologies the amount of the information available on the internet is enormous. Considering the rapid increase of the web pages and the internet traffic it is impossible for every new product information to be considered and consumed due to the consumers limited attention.Such Internet features as personalization, search capabilities and multimedia content are natural attention-getters, but an organization’s ability to execute them is still limited (Davenport & Beck, 2001)//.//

What is Attention Economy?


We live in an era where the increasing usage of internet and web 2.0 technologies is giving a rise to a new economy known as Attention Economy where the money is not the most important currency, instead the attention is the scarce resource.We are living a temporary attention economy in miniature right at this moment (Goldhaber, 1997)//.//According to Davenport and Beck, Attention is the real currency of businesses and individuals (Davenport & Beck, 2001). The attention is what everybody wants and what is difficult to capture. In our everyday lives we spend more time making decisions on where to focus our attention then what we do with our money (Goldhaber, 1997). Attention generates money and therefore is inevitable resource for the business in order to prosper and grow. As stated by Davenport and Beck, With the increasing amount of information on the internet comes an increasing demand for human attention (Davenport & Beck, 2001). Therefore in the new economy attention is a kind of a property as opposed to the traditional economy where the only currency was money itself. ////Thus obtaining attention is obtaining a kind of enduring wealth, a form of wealth that puts you in a preferred position to get anything this new economy offers (Goldhaber, 1997).

In order to get attention on the internet,the information must be emitted fist thus the information emitted must receive attention in order to be valuable. ////Therefore an information technology is also an attention technology, or in other words, a transfer of information is only completed when there is also a transfer of attention proceeding in the opposite direction (Goldhaber,1997). In order to triumph in the Attention Economy the interaction with the customers is of a great importance. The customer is the one who determines what business win and what fail (Berman & McClellan, 2002). The customer perception will rule and networked customers as active collaborators will have the power to shape the way the Internet economy works.

According to Iskold the two key ingredients of the success in the Attention Economy are:
 * Relevancy and
 * Privacy

The user is put in control of his information by choosing what services he wants to receive in exchange for his attention information.

__Attention Trust__ An organization for protecting consumers funded by Steve Gillmore and Seth Goldtsein



Kickstarter and Attention Economy
//// Crowdfunding involves relatively small contributions of many consumer-investors over a fixed time limit (generally a few weeks)//// (Bayus & Kuppuswamy, 2013)//.// Crowdfunding is a new and emerging type of funding in the digital age. It is becoming increasingly popular way of funding for creative individuals who have a project that needs to be funded. Crowdfunding is characterized by the use of the Web 2.0 technologies as the users can participate in the project they sponsor. For instance, users can vote on the projects they fund and receive financial and non financial benefits, therefore involving the projects beneficiaries before its launch creating attention around the project (Gorshkov, 2011).

Kickstarter is all or nothing crowdfounding site for creative people with one-off idea, people who have a developed social network and who use social applications. If the funding goal is not reached the project founder gets nothing. If the goal is reached the project gets funded and the backers get a reward as a sign of gratitude. Many successful projects have been founded on Kickstarter making it a popular crowdfunding site. There is however a criteria that the users need to consider before joining Kickstarter such as: A project must be approved by the site so that the users can requesting for pledges, after the project has been approved it must set a goal amount of money and a time period, for example $2000 over 30 days. And finally users must have an active and established social network as a backup and support for the project. Perry Chan the founder of a Kickstarter believes that for a project to succeed it needs to be creative and backed up by existing strong network.

Artists and entrepreneurs who used Kickstarter reveal few tips on how their social network helped them found-raise their project. For instance, Smith and her band says that her fans on Facebook and twitter helped in reaching her goal as much as the donators did as they helped spread the word, she has found new supporters and fans (Lagorio, 2010). Smith says that people's attention is gained by constantly updating a website and offering awards and incentives to backers and also by keeping a web page active and vibrant (Lagorio, 2010).

In order for the entrepreneurs and artists to successfully reach their goals and collect money from the backers with a Kickstarter they need to gain attention from the public and prosperous donors. To gain the attention the entrepreneurs need to build a creative, original and captivating video campaign that would sell their product and gain a positive feedback from the public. If the project is creative and original enough it will be successful. A backup from the fans who can be obtained via social networking platforms is very useful. Again the attention needs to be gathered from the friends, family and fans who would help spread the word and bring more supporters. In this community collaboration the focus is to get the attention which is a scarce resource in this new economy.

Kickstarter has a rather strict criteria for the prosperous projects that need to be funded. The project not only has to be creative and original, it needs to a clear goal,a creative video, reward for the backers and it needs to gather a certain amount of money over a certain period of time. The projects that fail to meet the mentioned criteria or do not meet the goal do not get any money, for this reason the artists are encouraged to create their own videos that would potentially attract the backers and promote themselves in order to get the green light. That way the creators are in control of their work and it is up to them weather their project will succeed and get the attention.You green-light yourself--the idea that creative people don't need intermediaries--has long been one of the Internet's great promises, and Kickstarter appears to finally deliver on it (Chafkin, 2013).

One of the Kickstarter founders Perry Chan says that Kickstarter does what is best for the community and that they are not afraid of the competition".The important thing is that things get created--not that we have ownership of the path to creation "(Chafkin, 2013). Kickstarter is an exclusive platform in comparison to Indiego which is a more flexible site. Kickstarter focuses on community and not the monetization and they ban categories such as charity, startup capital, home improvement products and so on. For instance, they refuse to take on gadget makers although they make a promising group of customers because they want the best for the ecosystem.As Chen said according to Chafkin, "It's not about monetization. It's not about maximization--of anything. We think this is healthier, better" (Chafkin ,2013).

__The importance of customer involvement__

Kickstarter makes the ideas and creative projects come to life but even if the projects are not successful the benefit from the backers feedback on the project can assist the creators to improve their work, connect with other supporters and investors and build on new ideas. The collaboration with the customers and connection with fans allow the creator to fulfill customer desires as they listen and engage with them. For example the newest Kickstarter project Massive Chalice, a video game set in fantasy realm used the feedback from their backers in order to improve the game and satisfy the needs of the customers. Their involvement with the customers helped them reach their success and gain new ideas. Murr, the creator of the game things that the project would go differently if the game was under a traditional game-publisher route, instead it involved the community and let the customers set the scene for the game (Geigner, 2013).

Another example is the project Gamasutra where the creators decided to host a three hour Livestream party on the last day of the campaign to celebrate their success or failure with their backers and fans. The event helped them complete their goal of $500,000 as they connected and engaged with their fans.////What matters is that you are using the campaign to connect with fans and get the money needed to succeed where you need to (Knight, 2012). This example shows how the involvement with fans can be beneficial for the projects as the creators engage with their fans and that is the essential part of the successful project campaign.

__How Kickstarter attracts new clients by offering a variety of features on its website:__


 * Kickstarter offers social integration with Facebook and Twitter and allows users to discover and share new projects with friends.
 * Kickstarter launched a phone application for iPhone that offers users to have access to all the projects on their mobile phones.
 * Videos of the current and most interesting projects on the Kickstarter website and a section of videos on the right hand side of the website classified as: projects ending soon, most popular,most funded and so on
 * An application for location finder in order to find the projects in the area selected
 * A discover browser that shows the most popular projects allowing users to explore new projects
 * Tags on the right hand side of the website that classify projects according to the name
 * Category section on the right hand side of the website that shows different categories of the projects

Kickstarter uses the internet to connect the clients with backers and gain the popularity through the successful projects. As Kickstarter gains 5% of the total funds raised in the project they rely on the attention from backers and their connections in order to make profits.The focus on creative and selective projects is why Kickstarter is gaining such a popularity in today's digital age where there are numerous crowdfunding websites available for all types of funding. What makes Kickstarter unique and popular is the way they combine the all or nothing funding model with the selected categories of projects they accept and the rewards offered to the backers as a sign of gratitude.