Relevance of Information

The Factors building the Value of Information, Part II

In my last blog I looked at the intrinsic value of information, i.e. the value of the data processing itself. Now we need to look at the meaning and context of information. Both build the extrinsic value that we want to identify. One factor we always consider to assess the meaning and context of information is the relevance. Vice versa, information that is not relevant does not have a value for us. Search engines, for instance, increase the relevance of information to us. Based on the search string we use, the engine will deliver relevant information back to us. Consider you want to find something on the internet and not use a search engine; certainly not a fun exercise.
Relevance to a user has a number of criteria that I found to describe or qualify different levels of relevance. Currently I see the following: ability to share or exchange, and further process the information, accuracy, accessibility, availability, combinability, comparability, completeness, location of the information consumer, reach of information, reliability, and the timeliness.
Let’s see what a good search engine does for us in particular with respect to increasing the relevance:
- it is easy to access
- it is very fast
- the results are meaningful in relation to the search string
- it has global reach for the sourcing as well as the distribution
- it offers a fairly complete view of publicly, digitally available information
- different results can be compared
Pretty cool for something that we do not need to pay for directly. However, what we deliver back to the search engine provider is relevant information as well. First, to further improve the capabilities, and secondly to leverage the platform by charging for advertisement on the platform. And again, the ability to make the ads relevant to the user creates value as well.
I think I outlined that relevance is at least one component of the extrinsic value of information. The question that remains is: Does relevance alone create economic value of information? I will further discuss this in my next blogs.
For today I want to state:

Meaning and context are the basis upon which extrinsic value of information is built.
One factor of the extrinsic value of information is the relevance of information to the information consumer.