The pre-Gutenberg world

In the world before the introduction of the printing press it was not possible to distribute
precise replicable information to a large number of people.  Information could be captured,
in the laborious and time consuming process of hand-produced books, scrolls or tablets, but
access to this information was restricted to a small elite group.  Transmission of knowledge
thereafter had to rely on purely word-of-mouth channels and the form of information that
was prevalent was therefore the story, this being the form best adapted to surviving the
process of ‘Chinese whispers’ that mass communication involved.

Institutional development was limited and society tended to be dominated by religion and
feudal political systems, institutions which were well adapted to the use of narrative or
hierarchy as means of propagation or control.

The Gutenberg revolution

It is widely acknowledged that the introduction of the printing press was revolutionary in its
impact.  It was credited as being the catalyst for the Renaissance, the development of
science and creating the pressures which forced power to slip from the hands of monarchs
and religious orders and become shared across a much broader section of society. 
However, there is a temptation to see all of these shifts as history and fail to see the extent
to which, what might be called the Gutenberg principle, continues to play an active role in
the shape and operation of society and institutions today.

Simply put, the Gutenberg principle can be expressed as the fact that mass distribution of
information is possible, but expensive.  The effect of the Gutenberg principle was the rise of
institutionalised and mediated channels to create the efficiencies and scale necessary to
manage the interaction between people with information and needs on the one hand, and
the people who wanted that information or could satisfy those needs.

The most obvious example of an institution which emerged was the media but in reality
almost all of the institutions that have emerged since Gutenberg owe their existence in
some part to the operation of the Gutenberg principle: a bank, for example, at its most basic
is simply a way of creating the efficiencies and scale necessary to mediate information
about people with money and people who want money.

While the technologies and channels for the distribution of information have developed
significantly since the Gutenberg press, the basic structure of the Gutenberg principle has
not: it still costs lots of money to distribute information to a mass audience.

The post-Gutenberg world

The emergence of the internet and the World Wide Web in the 1990s was initially hailed by
many as ushering in new democratic age, driven by much greater access to information.  In
reality, while the internet had a dramatic impact, the revolutionary shifts predicted did not
occur.  This is because, in its earliest days, the World Wide Web still conformed to the
Gutenberg principle.  Building a web site, accessing server space and publishing
information required both money and technical expertise and was therefore still the
preserve of institutions rather than individuals. The reality of much greater access to
information was not matched by a greater ability to publish it.
 Speed of access also limited the ability of the internet to be a channel for all forms of media,
restricting its use to text based and transactional forms.  As a result, much of the initial
investment in the web went into servicing and creating institutional opportunities, with e-
commerce emerging as the major new web-based phenomena.

This changed with two developments.  First, the spread of broadband internet access made
it possible to easily both upload and download all forms of media: video, images and audio
as well as just text and transactions.  Second, tools emerged which made it simple for
people to publish or spread information.  Blogging was the first example, followed by social
networking and distribution and sharing sites like YouTube and Flickr.

There has been a third trend which is gathering significance, based around attaching
relevance and context to all of the otherwise random pieces of information now being
published.  This concerns practices such as tagging, rating and commenting, as well as
services such as social bookmarking and news-sharing sites which allow individuals to store
and share information.  This trend is responsible for creating forms of collective intelligence
and what has been called ‘crowd wisdom’ and is probably the most important area to watch
going forwards because of its ability to allow individuals to create the trust and connections
necessary to transact and communicate amongst themselves without any institutionalised
intervention.

Information can now flow between one individual and all of the potential individuals for
whom that information might be of relevance, without any form of significant institutionalised
intervention (except the provision of a freely available technological infrastructure).  This is
what could be called the post-Gutenberg principle although perhaps a better term would be
the social information principle.

In very general terms the social information principle is likely to generate a very powerful
disintermediating or de-institutionalising effect which, in theory, could have consequences
for society at least as significant as those generated in the first instance by the development
of the printing press.  This is likely to play-out over many years since institutions and
practices which have been the foundation of our society for 500 years are unlikely to
disappear over-night.  However, there are some significant effects of the social information
principle which are already upon us, and it is these which are examined in the next section.

Understanding the post-Gutenberg world

There are essentially three ways in which the post-Gutenberg world is already intruding. 
These are:

 The decline (or slide into irrelevancy and obsolescence) of institutions and
businesses for whom information mediation is their principle function
 The rise of transparency and the challenge to institutionalised trust
 The challenge to markets posed by reduced costs of entry and the ability to service
niche demands.