Power back in your hands

There is an old post on Scobleizer about the future of web businesses. He mentions that Attention is the next big thing for web-apps because they can start to learn what you care about and monetize it by delivering better content and advertising.

E.g. If the site you visit can work out you like coffee, and will be traveling to a new city next week - it might give you an ad for the starbucks down the road from your hotel.

What he describes could be considered scary to some because the big bad company knows all about your habits.

Maybe... but Amazon.com has been doing it for years.

As I've said before - I'd like to see a tool that could capture that information about you in a way that bridged the gap between all sites and put the power back in your hands. A tool that took what it learned and delivered information to you as you worked instead of only when you were on the right website. A tool that you owned and controlled and could turn off whenever you felt like it. A tool who's job was not to sell you advertising, but rather to help you filter the signal from the noise so you could concentrate on what's important to YOU.

If only such a tool was being developed...