APML and the “Attention Economy”

The folks at Mashable had a great post yesterday on the developing APML standard. If you’re not familiar with APML, here’s a nice introduction.

In short, the goal of APML is to make our online consumption more efficient - allowing us the opportunity pay attention to more of what we’re interested in, and less of what we’re not. In order to do this, an “attention profile” - a record of the things you choose to pay attention to on the web - would be built over time and kept as an AMPL file. Websites that support AMPL would be able to tap into your AMPL file in order to discover what kinds of content you prefer to pay attention to. Those sites would then be able to serve up customized content based on your unique attention profile.

Along with other uses and benefits, the standardization of AMPL could take targeted web advertising to a new level. Rather than viewing ads that relate to the immediate context of a website or email you’re currently viewing (a la Google ads), you would view ads that are based on your cumulative attention profile.

There are some legitimate privacy concerns regarding AMPL, but it appears the workgroup that is helping to develop the standard is addressing those issues. Keeping AMPL as an opt-in-only service would go a long way. That freedom of choice, in addition to the ability to edit your own attention profile, should keep the privacy police at bay.