I’ve been in a kind of anti-technology mood recently. Maybe it’s from the fascinating but depressing book I just completed, A Short History of Progress, whose thesis basically boils down to what we humans call progress generally brings about catastrophe.

Or maybe it’s some of the downer messages that my guest blogger Derek has brought to us here from last week’s SYNDICATE conference (eg “RSS Sucks”, and our attention is up for sale as a commodity).

Or maybe it’s just because I’m a bit behind in my emails and feed readings.

In any case, it seems like it might be a good time to resurrect the fundamental question that one of my heroes, the late great media and cultural critic Neil Postman would advise his students to reflect on whenever confronting the introduction of any new technology. That question is:

“What is the problem to which this technology is the solution?”

As new technologies are introduced to us faster and faster: whether it is a new type of RSS Reader, consumer generated video aggregator, or what else is down the pipe, as professional researchers and information professionals, we must remember that we are obligated to ask the question:

“What is the problem to which this technology is the solution?”

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Technorati Tag: Technology

“Your attention, please. “

That’s exactly what advertisers have been saying to us for more than a century now and we have given it to them with few questions asked, and overwhelmingly for free.

Enter: Le Web

Once again, the web changes everything, or at least that’s what Steve Gillmor posited yesterday during a late morning keynote address at the Syndicate conference in New York. Steve and online big gun, Doc Searls, think that you, the information consumer, are entitled to a cut of your own action.

I am inclined to think they are on to something. In an always-on, interconnected universe of information distribution and consumption, every little thing we do in terms of communication is ultimately monetizable. Shifting one’s attention online is most always preceded with the click of a mouse and these datapoints are easily tracked. We may never prevent Google, Yahoo, or many other websites from capturing that demographic information, nor wish to considering all the great e-baubles they bless us with, but wouldn’t it stand to logic that we also be given the opportunity to profit, as well?

To facilitate these future transactions between marketers and the clicking masses are two companies that are assembling the markets and tools to pool our data and serve as clickstream (they call them “attention streams”) clearinghouses. Right now, Seth Goldstein’s Root Markets, and Gillmor’s own Gesture Bank both use plugins for Firefox that will record each site you visit, and they are easily disabled via the browser toolbar. Goldstein’s Root Markets is also providing an .api for internet developers who wish to tap these pools and create the analytical tools that we will undoubtedly require to interpret our own and perhaps others’ attention data. A word of note, however, Root Markets is also interested in selling your data to third parties. They are not just selflessly fighting for your rights as a consumer, but they stand to profit greatly by inserting themselves into this process.

Who can we really trust with this most private of information? Don’t most of us prefer emptying our browser’s cache and browser histories for good reason? We not only want to remain anonymous, but we desperately want to be able to surf without worry of repercussions, too. I suppose by having a few or more auction markets competing for my attention business dollars, privacy concerns will be part of their pitches, but hasn’t a supposedly tremendously scrupulous company (Google) already introduced the possibility of concern with their business decisions? Who can absolutely guarantee prevention from a takeover, a security breach, a unscrupulous employee? Sure, it may not be a social security number or banking information we are talking about here, but it’s the concentric circles of our numerous information storage providers that we are charged to protect.

Additionally, I do not look forward to a world of increasing focus on the provision of analytical tools targeted at my personal online behavior. Once markets for attention data are established, what will prevent my employer from selling my information, or even analyzing it themselves for their own benefit? Do we really want to go in this direction? Better yet, do we even have a choice?

I tested out Root.net’s Attention Recorder for a few weeks myself, and the internet eerily became something else for me. No longer was I in the privacy of my own home. I was now voluntarily giving a company information that up until now I have been extremely reluctant to give the government. At the very least, this is most likely not just a business decision. The current laws regarding these matters clearly do not provide the level of protection required by attention sellers.

When it comes to business, the internet really has changed everything, but perhaps we should include giving the same vigorous attention to our own legislative process. Beware the tempting carrot of profit-sharing and the promise of marketer retribution. Caveat emptor, or more appropriate to our empowered times, this time let it be the seller that is wary.