Online services had to lure users away from television to win attention.

Evidence

So if they were going to get people to sit in front of a computer screen and “dial-in” to networks (the commercial predecessors of the Internet), the online networking companies needed to do something to lure Americans away from television (as well as family, magazines, and other lesser draws). Over the 1990s each of our four companies tried something different. The story of what finally worked is in many ways the story of how networking and the Internet—and the third screen—would come to win for itself such an amazing share of the nation’s and the world’s attention. It’s also the story of how a new breed of attention merchants came into being. — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 696

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Free digital services are paid for by users’ attention.; Declining ratings drove traditional media to recruit internet celebrities as audience draw — Crystal Abidin, Internet Celebrity: Understanding Fame…, 198; The millennium marked a visible migration of mass attention from television to the internet — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 857 (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• The millennium marked a visible migration of mass attention from television to the internet #corroborates (0.75) — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 857
• Early internet buzz did not yet translate into commercial success #qualifies (0.70) — W. David Marx, Blank Space, 191