Opinion | What price attention? How data harvesters are changing our minds
Korey Lee says as data becomes the core asset for marketers, staying on top of trends and new developments in artificial intelligence, augmented reality and technology will become ever more critical to global awareness
We live in a world where attention has become the most valuable commodity. To what extent do we control what occupies our attention? Apple, Google, Facebook and Tesla are no longer simply device, search, social media or car companies. Their core asset has become the data they gather on us. Their products we know and love are harvesting information 24/7.
They are recording what we look up, where we go, who we look up, how we get there, when we wake up and go to bed. Ambient computing devices like Google Home and the Apple Watch make their way into our lives as a convenience but are also gathering ever more minute data points on our behaviour and preferences.
The marketplace we live in seems to often know more about us than we may know about ourselves
These devices log how we operate, our habits, what we are afraid to ask others but will ask a search engine incognito. Debate on intent aside, the marketplace we live in seems to often know more about us than we may know about ourselves.
The average person as of 2014 was exposed to 5,000 advertisements per day – that’s 3.5 ads per minute. It’s probably much more than that now. Even start-ups that have no revenue model but have the engagement of hundreds of millions of eyeballs can command multibillion-dollar unicorn Snapchat-type valuations.
Data will become an ever-increasing driver of the attention economy. Still not convinced?