The Information Economy, Update

A few weeks ago, we posted our thoughts on the meaning of the information economy, where products are imbued with a stories, or detailed information. In a bygone era, products were often viewed as elements of status, with goods designed in, or designed to mimic luxury materials. But in our current age, the luxury is not material, but temporal - time is the new gold standard, and having excess time, or rather the illusion of it, is the new status symbol. Products geared for consumption in this economy come with excess amounts of details, so that their owners can draw upon a wealth of product information, as if they personally had the time to investigate every aspect of the product.

This is no more obvious than in the May 2007 issue of Wallpaper. In "Score Draw", Nick Compton (who has given us economic inspiration before) interviews Jolyon fenwick and Marcus Husselby of the Internet luxury goods distributer 20ltd. On speaking about the origins of the company, Fenwick states "And we thought it a pity that luxury goods were only ever sold by identity marketing, the promise that if you buy this, you will be like this. It was also becoming less effective. And we knew that people were becoming more interested in the product stories." Elsewhere, Fenwick highlights the importance of product story or "surplus information" (insteasd of value), saying "When people look back at our time, all they will see of our luxury product is Kate Moss. There is nothing said about the design or the way things are made. That is wrong."