Record-your-own-attention toolkit

Now here's an Attention data experiment. This time by J Wynia.

"I’ve read several times that if they have age, sex and zip code, they can get really pretty accurate targeting to an individual. So, why is the information about me not easily available to me to glean insights from? Why can’t I follow my own trail and look back at my journey?"

What he's done is very interesting. He's hooked the AttentionTrust recorder extension to connect to an instance of Root Vaults server that he's running on his own webserver. 

(Update March 11 2006. Cori Schlegel corrected me on the above point. In fact what J Wynia used was the Attention Toolkit a free, open-source utility that records "attention data" from the AttentionTrust Extension into a MySQL database that he installed on his own webserver.)

He's now recording and storing his own clickstream data in his database, which he could connect to any other service he chooses. Or not.

He's documented all this so you can try too...

"After a few weeks or months, you can start digging deeper through the growing pile of data. Enjoy."

Why? Because it's his data. And he can.

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P.S Attention Trust Recorder is currently only for Firefox, but a port of the extension to IE seems to be on the way...

Related: My Attention Writings

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Tags: Attention

Comments

• Anonymous
  March 06, 2006
  In Protocol Alex Galloway uses the concepts in Deleuze's Postscript on Control Societies to examine the mechanisms of control through the the language of code and network protocol. I would like to take the Postscript one step further and apply...
• Anonymous
  March 07, 2006
  PingBack from http://billy-girlardo.com/WP/2006/03/07/setup_your_own_attention_server/
• Anonymous
  March 10, 2006
  Small correction, Alex.
  
  What J has done hasn't much to do with Root Vaults.  
  
  If the service that Root Vaults is running is based upon the <a href="http://www.attentiontrust.org/toolkit">Attention Toolkit</a> that J is using, it's very remotely so.  The software J used to set up his service (and that I'm using to record <a href="http://attentioncache.com">my attention</a>) is supplied by Attention Trust, which is a completely separate organization from Root Vaults.  
  
  I think it's hard to see that separation sometimes, but it's there.  And it's important.
• Anonymous
  March 10, 2006
  thanks Cori, good catch. will correct.
  
  Alex.
• Anonymous
  March 11, 2006
  I'd be real interested to hear whether or not you get that working on your end Alex.
  
  Not doubting J. Wynia in the least, I'm not getting anything but an error in my attention.log file (as noted in my above link) and would love to hear your setup process to get it working. Now that I see Cori above, I will ping him also. TIA
• Anonymous
  July 07, 2006
  One of my favorite bloggers, J Wynia, has decided he's going to run for Mayor of the Minneapolis suburb...
• Anonymous
  May 29, 2009
  PingBack from http://paidsurveyshub.info/story.php?title=alex-barnett-s-blog-record-your-own-attention-toolkit