The notion of Information Society and Information Industry has been
discussed in academic circles for quite a while. The visible presence of the global
Internet provides some more practical views on these issues.
One example might illustrate how an industry, that by many is considered to be a
standard example of low-tech, namely agriculture, could be dramatically
changed by the Global Brain paradigm. Currently we see considerable efforts
especially in Europe, to provide incentives for farmers to produce less quantity
or produce in a way that complies with a number of ecological or environmental
restrictions.
This immediately shows, that the value of the product is now shifting from the
physical nature of the product to the information about the product or its
substitute. For example the price that a farmer can achieve for NOT producing
a quantity of grain could be higher than the market price for the product itself.
That means that more valuable than the product itself is the information about
it or its non-existence.
This imposes immediately questions about verification and control of compliance
with the regulation which immediately can smell like a rapidly expanding
administrative and regulatory water-head. Other examples which might be more relevant
is the information about how the product was produced. Bread-Labeling is
one example, where the choice of the customer might depend on details of information
about a loaf of bread that the customer is about to buy: What sort of chemicals
have been used for the production? Under what conditions was it produced? Where
was it produced and when? But also other factors might be relevant for specific groups of
customers, e.g. the political, religious, or other preferences of the farmer [9]
.
In the future we can expect that important goods such as food is individually
labelled with an identification code similar to what is used today for over-night mail
tracking. We can also anticipate that such a tracking could not be done centrally.
In the case that every producer and dealer is connected to the global Internet,
this enormous task can become much more feasible:
Each farmer, say, can have a WWW/Mosaic document, in which all relevant information
about the production and the labels of the delivered products are organized
.
Consumer organizations or commercial vendors then can provide a service to the
end-customer to convert individual preferences into an algorithm that will rank
alternative choices for products. Instead of deciphering complicated product labels in
miniature print, the individual customer would only have to use the identification
number of the product and et an instantaneous evaluation with respect to the
individual preference list .
The main effect on marketing, however, would be a reduction of need for regulation,
since the almost real-time information that the producer makes available will combine
effective self-regulation with successful marketing strategies.
The information exchange on the Internet in typically two-way: Every time a customer requests information about a certain product, the producer will obtain information about the nature of the electronic requests. By analysing access log-files one can even in quasi realtime study, document and evaluate browsing behavior of potential customers and thereby try to anticipate and forecast trends on the market (see e.g. [7]).