{"product_id":"the-attention-merchants-isbn-9780804170048","title":"The Attention Merchants","description":"\u003cb\u003e\u003cb\u003eFrom the author of the award-winning \u003ci\u003eThe Master Switch,\u003c\/i\u003e who coined the term \"net neutrality”—a revelatory, ambitious and urgent account of how the capture and re-sale of human attention became the defining industry of our time. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\"Dazzling.\" —\u003ci\u003eFinancial Times\u003c\/i\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOurs is often called an information economy, but at a moment when access to information is virtually unlimited, our attention has become the ultimate commodity. In nearly every moment of our waking lives, we face a barrage of efforts to harvest our attention. This condition is not simply the byproduct of recent technological innovations but the result of more than a century's growth and expansion in the industries that feed on human attention. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWu’s narrative begins in the nineteenth century, when Benjamin Day discovered he could get rich selling newspapers for a penny. Since then, every new medium—from radio to television to Internet companies such as Google and Facebook—has attained commercial viability and immense riches by turning itself into an advertising platform. Since the early days, the basic business model of “attention merchants” has never changed: free diversion in exchange for a moment of your time, sold in turn to the highest-bidding advertiser. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFull of lively, unexpected storytelling and piercing insight, \u003ci\u003eThe Attention Merchants \u003c\/i\u003elays bare the true nature of a ubiquitous reality we can no longer afford to accept at face value.\u003cb\u003e\u003cb\u003eOne of the Best Books of the Year\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe San Francisco Chronicle * The Philadelphia Inquirer * Vox * The Globe and Mail\u003c\/i\u003e (Toronto)\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Vigorous, entertaining.... Wu describes how the rise of electronic media established human attention as perhaps the world’s most valuable commodity.” —\u003ci\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Boston Globe\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e“The Attention Merchants is a book of our time, touching on an emerging strain of anxiety about the information age.... A bracing intellectual tour de force.” —\u003ci\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe San Francisco Chronicle\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Comprehensive and conscientious, readers are bound to stumble on ideas and episodes of media history that they knew little about. [Wu] writes with elegance and clarity, giving readers the pleasing sensation of walking into a stupendously well-organized closet.” —\u003ci\u003eThe New York Times\u003c\/i\u003e \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e “A startling and sweeping examination of the increasingly ubiquitous commercial effort to capture and commodify our attention.... We’ve become the consumers, the producers, and the content. We are selling ourselves to ourselves.” —\u003ci\u003eThe New Republic\u003c\/i\u003e \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e “The book is studded with sharp illustrations of those who have tried to stop the encroachment of advertising on our lives, and usually failed.... Wu dramatizes this push and pull to great effect.” —\u003ci\u003eThe New York Times Book Review\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e“An engaging history of the attention economy.... [Wu] wants to show us how our current conditions arose.” —\u003ci\u003eThe Washington Post\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e “Dazzling.... [Wu] could hardly have chosen a better time to publish a history of attention-grabbing.... He traces a sustained march of marketers further into our lives.” —\u003ci\u003eThe Financial Times\u003c\/i\u003e \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e “ [An] erudite, energizing, outraging, funny and thorough history of one of humanity's core undertakings—getting other people to care about stuff that matters to you.” —\u003ci\u003eBoing Boing\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e “Engaging and informative.... [Wu’s] account ... is a must-read.” —\u003ci\u003eThe Washington Times\u003c\/i\u003eTIM WU is a policy advocate and professor at Columbia Law School. In 2006, \u003ci\u003eScientific American\u003c\/i\u003e named him one of fifty leaders in science and technology; in 2013, \u003ci\u003eNational Law Journal\u003c\/i\u003e included him among “America’s 100 Most Influential Lawyers”; and in 2014 and 2015, he was named to the “Politico 50.” He won the Lowell Thomas Gold medal for travel journalism and is a contributing opinion writer for \u003ci\u003eThe New York Times.\u003c\/i\u003e","brand":"Vintage","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46301349314789,"sku":"NP9780804170048","price":20.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780804170048.jpg?v=1767738221","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/the-attention-merchants-isbn-9780804170048","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}