Twitter and the 'intention economy'

I came across the concept of the 'intention economy' early this week - although surprisingly it seems to be a concept that's been around since 1996.

It's a very interesting idea, with some major repurcussions for micro and macro-economics if taken to its logical conculsion. Doc Searls invented the term in an essay he wrote for Linux Journal:

"The Intention Economy grows around buyers, not sellers. It leverages the simple fact that buyers are the first source of money, and that they come ready-made. You don't need advertising to make them."

But as fascinating as it is I can't help but think that the intention economy is a long way off.

So that was Monday morning in my RSS feeds, and then Monday evening lying in bed (steady!) I read an article by Jemima Kiss in Media Guardian about the micro-blogging, life-streaming, etc tool, Twitter.

There, hidden in the final couple of paras, is a telling insight of two very important things. The first is the possibility of a revenue model for Twitter - a long held Holy Grail. The other could be a sniff of the makings of the intention economy:

"Twitter has ambitious plans for growth, [Ev] Williams explained. A group feature is being developed, a better way of browsing a user's history, and there are also some long-awaited plans to monetise the service. The strategy will involve branded channels, so companies like Woot would pay to reach those very valuable, loyal users."

It could have been the glass of red-wine, but companies paying a premium to reach out to customers as they tweet about products they want or need sounds could be the start of the intention economy.

Technorati tags: intention economy, Doc Searls, Media Guardian, Jemima Kiss, Twitter