The two readings discuss related topics - the economics of information and the economics of attention. In the "Information Surplus in the Digital Age" chapter, information surplus is defined as "the excessive amount of information available to users even at the price of zero." If we look at the law of supply and demand, a high supply and low demand will push prices down; therefore the more information we receive (supply) and the less attention we exert (demand) will continue to push the price of information down, or in other words, continue to increase information surplus. With that in mind, how are media companies supposed to continue to grow and make profits in the future? Is there a media company out there that can find the answer? One medium in particular comes to mind - Snapchat.
Although its concept would seem to solve the attention deficit and information surplus discussed in the readings, Snapchat is not quite there and even shows signs of regression from solving this problem. The application's concept is simple: people can send up to ten seconds of a photo or video and cannot view it again once the content is opened. Ten seconds allows for us to devote enough attention without being overloaded with an excessive amount of information. However, how will Snapchat make money from this concept especially when the application is free? The answer is advertisements, which is the same reason Snapchat is moving further from decreasing the information-attention gap. Over the last year, Snapchat has added Stories and Discover Channels, two features that allow advertisers to pay for their content to be featured. Although this advertising projected a revenue of $50 million for the company in 2015, more information is saturating the application and the less attention people are devoting to it. Snapchat has fallen to information surplus and as a result the value of attention management is lost. If a trendy application like Snapchat cannot find the solution, will the problem ever be solved?
No comments:
Post a Comment