I think that the attention economy is best served talking about Attention efficiency.

Attention efficiency is the ratio of useful, valuable, or effective output to the total attention input in any system or systems.

For example, the attention efficiency of television changed a great deal when Tivo arrived on the scene, reducing the required input to get the same value. To deliver on the attention economy is to deliver attention efficiency. If managing Tivo consumes the same amount of attention as the eliminated commercials then Tivo has done nothing to deliver attention efficiency (not the best example, but its late). So as attention becomes the measure of value then we must understand what burdens our applications and businesses place on the attention of our customer / users / observers.

Today we lack any real attention efficiency due to the fact that we are required to interact in so many different silos. I like to think that we will move the online experience (offline experience will slowly disappear) from one of silos that force attention inefficiencies, to a paradigm of situational awareness that is driven by creating attentional efficiencies based on our individual values.

It is critical to point out that the folks who think about attention are themselves early adopters and forward thinkers, that is not the case for everybody else. So our success is dependant on folks that don’t think about attention but value it and desire simple means to deliver more effective output from their attention investments.

Links:
The definition of efficiency courtesy of Answer.com
efficiency