Download - Attention and free economies
Attention and Free Economies
with a focus on Google
By Narelle Absolom
Fundamental terms
Attention Economy Free Economy Often synonymous and usually
linked in terms of the fundamental economic basis of the interent
Attention is scarce The internet is
overflowing with information
Much of it is freely available
But without attention, getting ‘eyeballs’ to your information – how useful is it?
Image source: http://www.mediafuturist.com/2008/08/getting-paid-wi.html
Free Economy Sometimes, (in fact, often online)
you have to give your product or service away for free
Then you can make money later, through: Advertising Sponsorship Brand marketing
Google is Free… and Rich!
Google provides most of its products and services free to users
Yet it made $21billion last year! How is this possible?
Image source: http://phiyakushi.files.wordpress.com/2009/07/money_stack.jpg
Google the Survivor
Google was both clever and lucky It survived the dotcom crash by
applying non-traditional marketing methods
recruiting just the right people for the job
taking calculated risks
So Much Attention, So Little Time!
Google gathered a huge amount of attention very quickly. How? Why? Making a search engine that was
quick and worked as expected Building on its success constantly by
improving its search technology Not being “evil”
Show Me the Money!
Google made its money through advertising: AdSense applied relevant advertising
links to the top of keyword search results
AdWords was a pay-per-click auction model where companies could buy ads in search results sidebars
Household Name
Google became synonymous with search
You don’t “use a search engine” anymore, you “Google it”!
Image source: http://www.sevensheaven.nl/images/producten/illustration-illustratie_google-search_02.jpg
King of Information Google has its fingers in many
pies: Search Blogging Social networking Email Knowledge base Website creation and many more… Image source: http://b2b-marketingblog.com/tag/google/
Summary
Google is a great case study for attention and free economic models
Its products are essentially free, and the attention it gathers transform into revenue through advertising
Free + attention = money!
Full Article and References
For the full article, including references cited, please following this link:
http://sites.google.com/site/net205apples/home/attention-economy