The New York Times announced today that they are investing in a company called Root which focuses on attention. I recently attended Syndicate NY where Seth Goldstein, the CEO and founder of Root, explained how Root is using attention. I do not recall a single mention of a big player in the media industry such as New York Times, Forbes.com or USAToday.com using the Roots system. However the recent announcement by PaidContent.org that the NYTimes had closed a $12 million dollar round of funding had this to say about Root:
"The company’s technology and service has been adopted by NYTimes.com, Forbes.com (and example on Forbes.com is here) and USAToday.com, to convert its visitors into direct leads, instead of using third party and affiliate lead-gen services. Typically, the lead-gen has been a black-box for publishers, who have no control over the data…Root’s solution hopes to help publishers have control of the data and retain revenue from every lead generated on their sites."
I just wonder if others will jump onto the technology and start paying for highly targeted leads - or attention. For more information on Root check out this Forbes article from January 2006.
