We have to look at today’s economy and say, “What is it that’s really scarce in the Internet economy?” And the answer is attention. [Psychologist] Herb Simon recognized this many years ago. He said, “A wealth of information creates a poverty of attention.” So being able to capture someone’s attention at the right time is a very valuable asset.
From an interesting interview with Hal Varian, professor of information sciences at UC Berkeley and Google’s chief economist. Other topics include the history of innovation, how the web challenges management, computer-mediated transactions, auction models, and why “the sexy job in the next ten years will be statisticians”.