Ad · AttentionWatch
AI products are launching faster than ever. Getting discovered — and staying discoverable — is becoming much harder. We built AttentionWatch to approach that problem differently.
There is something I’ve noticed after spending years following AI products and the people building them.
We have never had more tools for building.
You can go from an idea to a working AI product faster than at any other point in software history.
But getting people to notice what you built?
That part hasn’t become easier.
In some ways, it has become harder.
A founder can spend months building a genuinely useful product, finally launch it, post about it on X and LinkedIn, send a few emails, maybe get picked up by a newsletter — and within a day or two, the internet has moved on.
Another model launches.
Another agent goes viral.
Another product gets everyone's attention.
The product you spent six months building is still there.
But the launch moment is gone.
That is one of the problems behind AttentionWatch.
Today, we’re opening it.
AttentionWatch is a permanent AI product directory built around what’s shipping now.
That distinction is important.
I didn't want to build another place where you submit an AI tool once, get added to a giant database, and that's basically the end of the story.
But I also didn't want a platform where everything revolves around one launch day and your product becomes yesterday's news 24 hours later.
AttentionWatch tries to combine both.
Your Product is permanent.
Your Launches capture what the Product is doing now.
So a company might create its Product profile once and, over time, launch:
Those launches become part of the history of the same Product.
The Product doesn't have to start from zero every time the company ships something new.
At the bottom of everything is a permanent AI Product directory.
Every approved Product gets its own public profile.
That gives founders a lasting place to explain what they have built, while giving visitors another way to discover AI products by category and use case.
And because the profile persists, future Launches can build on top of it.
Think about a company that ships five meaningful updates over the next two years.
Instead of those releases becoming five disconnected posts scattered across social media, AttentionWatch can show the evolution of that Product in one place.
That's the permanence part.
Then comes the live part.
When a Product ships something meaningful, its founder can create a Launch.
Once approved, that Launch can appear in Just Shipped.
Just Shipped is deliberately straightforward.
It answers one question:
What just launched?
And you do not need to buy Promotion Credits just to have an approved Launch discovered there.
That was an important product decision for us.
I don't think founders should have to pay simply to exist.
The directory is free.
Submitting a Launch is free.
Promotion is optional.
If you've built something worthwhile and it qualifies for the platform, there should be a path to being discovered without paying us first.
This is where AttentionWatch becomes quite different from a traditional directory.
Founders who do want additional visibility can enter their eligible Launch into the Attention Market.
The Attention Market is a transparent daily competition for attention.
Launches compete using Promotion Credits, with one Promotion Credit representing $1 of prepaid promotional value.
The more Credits committed to a Launch, the higher it can move in the Market.
And everyone can see the competition.
There isn't a mysterious advertising algorithm deciding who appears first.
If one Launch has committed 100 Credits and another has committed 150, you can see it.
If someone overtakes you, you can see that too.
And most importantly:
The Market resets every day.
Yesterday's winner does not permanently own tomorrow's attention.
Every day is a new competition.
Because attention already has a market.
We just normally don't see it.
Companies spend money on search ads.
Sponsored newsletters.
Influencer campaigns.
Social media promotion.
Featured listings.
Launch campaigns.
PR.
The market already exists — it's just fragmented across dozens of platforms with very different pricing models and very little visibility into what everyone else is doing.
AttentionWatch makes one small part of that market explicit.
A founder can say:
This Launch matters to us today, and we're willing to commit this much promotional value to getting it seen.
Other founders can respond.
Visitors can watch.
The competition itself becomes part of the discovery experience.
Whether that model becomes genuinely useful at scale is something we intend to find out.
There was another line I wanted to draw very clearly.
Paying for visibility should not mean paying to be called popular.
So Attention Market rankings and Trending are separate systems.
If a founder commits Credits in the Market, that can improve the Launch's paid Market position.
It does not automatically make the Product organically Trending.
Attention Market = paid competitive visibility.
Trending = verified organic attention.
That distinction is intentional.
I think users deserve to know the difference.
If something is promoted, call it promoted.
If something is genuinely getting organic attention, let that signal mean something different.
We've also built Offers into the Launch system.
A founder may be launching something with:
a discount,
a free trial,
early access,
a special launch code,
or another incentive.
Those Offers can be attached to Launches and discovered separately.
That means AttentionWatch doesn't have to be just somewhere you read about products.
Sometimes there is a reason to actually try one now.
The easiest way I’ve found to explain AttentionWatch is through five layers:
Directory — permanent AI Product discovery.
Just Shipped — what has recently launched.
Trending — what is gaining verified organic attention.
Attention Market — which eligible Launches are competing for additional paid visibility.
Offers — incentives attached to launches.
Each one answers a different question.
And I think keeping those signals separate is more useful than collapsing everything into a single ranking.
The top qualifying Launch at the end of a Market day can become the Daily Champion.
There are achievements associated with Market performance, but I wanted winning the day to potentially mean more than getting a badge on a webpage.
So qualifying Daily Champions may also receive additional editorial or distribution exposure through AttentionWatch-owned or approved partner publications.
We're starting with The AIDB Today.
Over time, I want to work with other quality AI newsletters and publications as distribution partners.
The idea is straightforward:
If founders are going to compete for attention, the platform should keep finding ways to turn that attention into actual distribution.
The editorial benefit is an additional earned benefit and remains subject to editorial review and fulfillment. It isn't a guarantee of a specific publication, date, placement, or audience outcome.
For now, we're focused entirely on AI.
The initial directory spans categories including:
There are obvious directions the model could eventually expand into.
I'm deliberately not thinking about those yet.
AI has more than enough launch activity for us to figure out whether the concept works.
That's a fair question.
There are already a lot of AI directories.
I know. I run one.
And that experience is part of why I wanted AttentionWatch to be different.
Directories are useful because they create permanence.
But permanence alone doesn't capture the energy around something that shipped this morning.
Social platforms capture that immediacy extremely well — but the feed keeps moving.
Launch platforms capture a moment — but products continue evolving after that moment.
Advertising creates visibility — but it is normally detached from the discovery experience itself.
AttentionWatch is an attempt to bring some of those ideas together:
the permanence of a directory,
the freshness of a launch feed,
the signal of organic activity,
and a transparent market for additional attention.
That's the experiment.
I don't want it to become a giant graveyard of abandoned AI listings.
I don't want a founder to think that paying us is the only way anyone will ever see their product.
I don't want paid placement disguised as organic popularity.
And I don't want the Market filled with artificial activity simply because empty leaderboards don't look good.
I'd rather start smaller and have real founders, real products, real launches and real competition.
That will tell us much more.
The first production version of AttentionWatch is now live.
If you're building an AI Product, you can create its permanent profile.
When you ship something meaningful, publish a Launch.
If you have a special incentive, add an Offer.
If you want additional visibility, compete in the Attention Market.
And if you're simply someone who follows AI products, come see what's shipping.
This is the beginning, not the finished version of the idea.
I'm interested in seeing what happens when founders start using it for real.
AttentionWatch