What is Information?

As a first step, we need to get a clearer definition of the topic.

But what is this stuff, "information?" Before we can go very far, we need a definition of information goods and services, and that is a pretty controversial subject in itself.

Here are some examples of the trade in information goods and services:

  1. A newly invented machine is patented, and the patent is licensed to a company that plans to build and sell the machine.
  2. A new edition of a best-selling travel guide is published.
  3. A public library buys 3 copies of the travel guide to lend (free) to its patrons.
  4. A financial advisor offers his clients advice and opinions about profitable investments in return for a commission on their investment transactions.
  5. An investor consults a World-Wide Web page for the values of "leading economic indicators" (key economic statistics) supplied by the U. S. Commerce Department. There is no charge.
  6. A collection of photographs of great paintings in world museums is put on CD-ROM and sold by a computer software company.
  7. A record company publishes a boxed set of CD's with a digital recording of a recent performance of Mozart's "Marriage of Figaro," with Bryn Terfel singing the role of Figaro. The set includes the libretto of the opera.

What these examples have in common is that information goods and services are being sold (or given away). For the purposes of this chapter, information goods and services share these properties:

a) An information product is a collection of symbols.

b) Its utility depends on the arrangement of the symbols, not on the material form that they take.


Next:The Examples, Again
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