The Attention Merchants: The Epic Scramble to Get Inside Our Heads by Tim Wu
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Publisher Site — Penguin

This book explores the evolution of capturing attention for commercial purposes. It delves into the history of attention economics from the development of print ads to the pursuit of virality via the internet and social media. Wu outlines how different media (e.g. print, radio, television, cable tv, and the internet) learned different lessons about how to make advertising work given the unique nature of each platform. The book also offers insight into how advertising spawned a market for people’s personal consumer information as the internet era began to allow companies to target ads for maximum effect, rather than using the scattershot approach that was all that was available to radio and broadcast television.

I found this book to be informative and it’s a subject of which people should be aware. William James famously said, “…what we attend to is reality.” If James was right, our reality is being shaped by forces that often remain outside our awareness. If you are curious about the attention economy, this is a highly readable overview of the subject.

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