Information markets to improve information value and utilisation

The Internet and Intranet reduce much of the costs of information sharing, but they do not solve receivers’ reading and interpretation limitations. Alternatively, browsers and navigators ease information retrieval but do not solve the problems of specifying information needs and evaluating retrieval results. This article approaches these problems as a non-optimal situation for supplier as well as buyer of information goods. The author applies insights from pure markets, networks and hierarchies to detect six types of information goods, whose trade can be facilitated by a corresponding trade service. The author argues that the development of these services contributes more to the reduction of under-utilisation and under valuation of information than technological developments alone.