Module 4: Concept 33: Information and attention

In the era of the ‘attention economy’, readers and users of Internet information must be carefully craft, in their own minds, the kind of metadata which will – almost instinctively – ‘fit’ with the metadata of the information sources they want, so that – in the few brief moments of initial exchange, when a seeker of information encounters information being sought, rapid, effective judgments are made that ‘pay off’ in terms of further reading, accessing and saving.

This concept is recognising the fact that anything you place on the internet is going to have to compete with the billions of other pieces of information already out there.

This is a complex idea to consider. It could be something like the meta data which a search engine like google uses to index and rank your site.

It could also be addressing something as simple as the layout of your web page - something which is instantly going to hold someones attention and make it stand out from the billions of other pages already out there. Making something concise and scannable to a distracted reader searching for information in a hurry.