Attention Steve

Quietly as I find, the website of the Attention Trust has been relaunched, getting the third inception of the logo (time to get members of the Trust to change the logo on their sites, too, btw.). Steve Gillmor, until recently host of the Gillmor Gang has been absent of late, almost a month without posting. Yes, I checked on technorati, even Google Video, if he has silently launched yet another blog (though he has been seen). No new podcasts from Jason, so no podcast to complain about production. (UPDATE: CalacanisCast9 was just published after I finished this post. No chance to listen yet)
Until resurfacing, we may just have a look at Michael Goldhaber’s recent entry on attention economy transactions:

By contrast, an attention transaction is rarely contractual, virtually never legally enforceable, and generally involves unequal attention on the two sides. Consider the case of someone speaking to a large, rapt audience; many pay attention to one, far more then he or she can pay back. Sometimes those paying attention also pay in services of other kinds or money, in addition to attention, sometimes not. The attention of audience members doesn’t necessarily end when they leave the room, or when the speaker is finished, but can continue further, and be re-ignited, much later by some mental association or other with the speaker or something she said. Each such further transaction clearly occurs in the mind of a particular listener.

An attention transaction thus involves each individual attention payer separately. The audience can be said to pay attention, but only to the extent that the sum of people n it do. If some pay much more, or return more tot the subject later, they are clearly each involved in a separate transaction, even though they may tend to pay heightened attention to the speaker precisely because so many other around are also paying attention. Likewise, it is difficult to pay attention to a group as such. Even if you are listening to an orchestra or chorus, you are significantly listening to the composer, whose work they can be said to channel, and the a few others who direct the playing, especially the conductor, and possibly also the arranger. Some particular person decides what pieces to play and how to play them, and the others turn that into sound. Likewise you can pay attention to play or a movie only if one particular person’s feelings and views guide how the others involved do what they do. To prepare such a complex performance requires a lot of attention on the part of the key person, which is why it can take months or years to make a movie, say, even though you can then watch it in little over an hour. But you are not paying attention to the film company, say Sony Pictures or Paramount, in the sense that if you buy, say a car, you are paying money to the car company.

Long quote, but quite important to understand the concept.

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