The commodification of everything & the attention gold rush

Selling commodities sucks.

An undifferentiated product is a commodity: a gallon of gas is a gallon of gas is a gallon of gas.

The typical way to make money selling a commodity is to compete on price, but that is indefensible; there are no significant barriers to competitive forces causing a price war that drives your margins to zero.

Or in short, selling commodities really sucks.

A better strategy is to make a product that is differentiated by inherent properties that make it more valuable. That’s a “duh” comment, but here is your problem:

You might be great, but so is everyone else.

This matters to us because it’s not enough to have a great website anymore.

1. Everything is a commodity

As our world continues to improve in all industries, on all products that satisfy all needs — as we asymptote toward perfection (yes, I just went all singularity on your ass) — everything looks more and more like a commodity.

As quality improves it becomes more uniform.

The best strategy is still to be the best, but how exactly do you do that when everyone else is so damn awesome?

Most marketers say, “tell a different story.” That’s right, but just having the story isn’t enough:

How do you get people to listen to your story?

2. Getting attention is a cost

The only websites that matter are the ones you know about. You can’t visit a website that hasn’t been linked to.

To have a website that matters, some of your time or money has to be spent to get attention. It’s a cost of doing business.

Being able to direct attention is therefore something that can be sold by the people who own the media by which people consume information.

That’s why advertisements on other websites will get you traffic. It’s easy to buy this attention, you just need money. Unfortunately, as soon as you stop paying, the traffic stops.

3. Dominate attention in a vertical monopoly

Since attention is a cost, the media owners you advertise with are your suppliers. You should squeeze these folks out of your supply chain to create a vertical monopoly.

Why?

The more every website looks the same, the more it matters who can get the most attention; the more attention matters, the more valuable it becomes to be able to influence people.

The opportunity is that attention is getting both more valuable and more available.

4. The opportunity is huge

We are participating in a massive shakeup of influence, and it’s happening fast.

The media industry has been breaking down over the last decade because of the democratization of attention. Blogs, social networks, and review sites are all examples of a trend toward fragmentation. It’s about word of mouth.

That isn’t the remarkable part of the story.

The remarkable thing is how little has changed so far, not how much. You only missed the beginning.

5. The opportunity is unique

Today, the barrier to entry is so low that you don’t have to specialize; you can use influence and authority toward other ends besides packaging and reselling it.

You can build it into your product.

Gary Vaynerchuk calls this the personal brand gold rush.

I’m a huge fan (and neighbor) of Gary’s. He was doing well for himself as the owner of The Wine Library, a wine retailer. Then he started Wine Library TV, turned himself into a media mogul, and started minting cash for his business.

The cost of becoming a media mogul? Pure energy.

6. Welcome to the 21st century gold rush

If you listen to Gary talk about the personal brand gold rush, you’ll hear him reassure you that the path doesn’t always look obvious. He says you need to start going and figure out the details later.

If this looked like a sure thing and the formula for success were obvious, the opportunity wouldn’t be there.

Nobody can tell you how this will pan out; that’s why it’s a gold rush. The only sure bet is that you can’t win if you don’t play.

7. It’s about respect

When I wrote about how to blog, I noted that one of the reasons I blog is to build a podium: “This blog puts me in a position to direct attention — human attention and search engine attention — to things that matter to me … this is the 21st century gold rush.”

The way we consume information is changing. We used to visit a website because Yahoo listed it prominently in its directory. As someone who wanted to spread a message (“visit my website!”), you had to go to influentials and buy a share of attention.

Now, we visit the websites that Google (and Yahoo) recommends as having the most word of mouth, or the ones we hear about directly from the people we respect.

You have to become a respected voice, or be ready to pay an attention tax to those who are for the next quarter century. They might be your competitors.

Here’s what you can do today:

Figure out where your area of opportunity is
Start blogging, recording videos, producing content in that area
Interact with the other people who care

You don’t have to figure everything out right now. It doesn’t have to make perfect sense. You don’t need a framework to follow — just make yourself worth caring about.

Sometimes the best web strategy is to close your eyes and jump.

The Lovable Rogue

Interesting perspective, Josh. I particularly liked your comment that quality is slowly becoming a commodity. Hopefully this view will become the norm, and we will soon reach a stage in which absolute quality is the norm; not the exception. Admittedly, this does make differentiating one's product more difficult, but hopefully that causes the products and services that are truly exceptional to rise to the top.

I also like the comments you make concerning the winning of attention. As the creation of content as a means of differentiating one's products goes mainstream in the light of increased returns, the value of an ability to direct attention will skyrocket. Those able to demonstrate such an ability are likely to remain in a position of strength. In a recent article in TechCrunch, Mike Arrington questioned Robert Scoble's 'overuse' of such platforms as FriendFeed. Stating that the content created on someone else's platform offered limited value to its creator, Arrington suggested that Scoble should abandon FF for the purpose of greater focus upon his blog. Perhaps the directing of attention through links etc represents a means of monetizing such platforms?

Essentially, we are left with two options for success; either use the instruments and resources available to our advantage by adding value to our product and service offerings, or use our connections to direct attention. Whilst the second is likely to prove significantly more difficult to establish in the long run, it is simultaneously likely to remain more sustainable. The rising numbers of blogs and social media content solutions slowly being incorporated by a more mainstream group of users will invariably ensure that the need for on-demand visibility remains high.

TLR

joshklein

I love that idea that you need to own your own platform, because otherwise you're building an asset for someone else. I agree that you need to be building your own channel, that you 100% own, but I do think it's important that you "integrate" your channel. That is, you can't do a "build it and they will come" sort of thing. You have to go where the eyeballs are to win attention. There are different phases to a media strategy; when you're a newbie, it makes sense to build your blog while spending a lot of time on twitter, friendfeed, or whatever. When you're a big player like Scoble, I'd say it makes very little sense -- though in his specific case, his whole shtick requires that he be an early adopter... so maybe that's an exaggeration. Point is: the more attention you get to your platform, the more you can "live there" ... though it makes sense to always be looking for new eyeballs elsewhere.

Your final point makes sense, but I think it overemphasizes the choice -- you should be able to do both. Making connections is important. You should talk to, and about, other people. But it's also important to not JUST be a talker -- people can see through that. You should have something valuable to offer as well.

It all comes back to the "worth caring about" point in my mind. Put your head down and work your ass off while being a good person, accept the tools that look helpful, and you're 99% of the way there.

Nan

Josh - been wondering when you would put out the next part of your series - and I continue to find your info and approach beneficial to where I am with all of this right now.
Nan

tumblemoose

Josh,

Esta Muy Importante for all of us to try and remain positive and keep things in perspective. I agree that we are in a time of great opportunity as long as we don't sit around wringing our hands. Much better to put them to use at a keyboard, in my opinion.

Nice job.

George

joshklein

Glad you enjoyed, George. With rising unemployment, I can only imagine even more people are going to be pursuing this avenue with their excess downtime in 2009. As a citizen, I can only hope. As a strategist, it says to me "main stream is coming!"

Charles Bohannan

Josh another excellent, insightful and visionary post. Your writing is so clear and free of clutter that it seems to extract with great precision the ideas I have but can't always pin down.

One item you mentioned really stuck: having to often let go and just do it. Everyday I wonder if what I'm doing is actually leading somewhere big, and even if I feel it's not, I keep going. Not all the time are we going to know where we're going or what we're doing (how could we possibly know the answer until we get there?). This advice is both reassuring and inspirational - thanks.

I hope to engage with you more this year and beyond. 2009 seems like the year of great change and advancement for those willing to take the chance.

joshklein

Thanks for your kind words. You're right to keep on keepin' on; just make sure you periodically evaluate where you have come from and where you're going.

Every quarter I look back on what I had planned for the preceding 3 months compared to where I actually ended up. The two are never the same, but by virtue of planning strategically I was able to point myself in SOME useful direction. As I plan for the beginning of 2009, I see a lot of things I have yet to understand ... so I just gloss over the details.

I'm glad you got a useful message about just letting go, but I wouldn't want to suggest it means you shouldn't plan anyway. When I say, "you don’t have to figure everything out right now... it doesn’t have to make perfect sense..." I don't mean that you don't need to think hard about it anyway and have it make some sense :)

Matt

Well put. It is true, particularly in the blogosphere. As the convention gets older and the market more saturated the blogosphere has become commoditized. It's is a fine line between the innovators and the imitators, and I think it's a challenge to innovate. In the long term, the persistent innovators will prevail, however, I think the imitators have a distinct advantage in the short term.

Despite the democratization of the media, certain channels are still dominated by a select few (eg. Digg) and pandering to the whims of the system and the minority that dominate it will produce more short term success, which tends to homogenize the industry.

It is not my intent to demonize the imitators, or the system. Even the best innovators aren't innovating ALL the time. I think it goes to illustrate the point that as the sheer volume of brands (blogs) rise, simply having a unique brand it not enough. To succeed in the short term and long term you need a quality brand, the knowledge of HOW to reach the people who care, the will to do it, and the patience for your work to be recognized.

joshklein

I wish I had mentioned patience upfront; you're absolutely right. The reason I think this is such a big deal is not that a quality brand is the be-all end-all of success right now, but that it will be in the future. The best way to set yourself up for that future, maybe the only way, is to act now before the medium gets even more crowded. Sure, the blogosphere is a competitive place, but the vast majority of people still don't blog.

Of course, I'm not strictly talking about blogging, but rather the act of accumulating attention. I think there are other ways to do it.

The main point is that we used to leave that whole "attention thing" to magazines, television, newspaper, etc. Now, it's fair game for the little guy.

Josh Klein Web Strategy

The commodification of everything and the attention gold rush

January 14th, 2009 by Josh Klein