Information industries have traditionally been defined in terms of the form of information for two important reasons. First, the underlying technologies for handling each type of information have been vastly different in the past, and each technology could not handle other forms of information. Second, the government has actively constrained many information-based companies from entering other types of information businesses.

Text

The first information industry was based on text and originated with the invention of the printing press in 1455 and movable type later in the fifteenth century. For text-based information, the primary industry has been printing and publishing (newspapers, magazines, books, etc.). The primary functional emphasis has been on content creation, with a secondary emphasis on collection and dissemination. The principal technologies at the heart of the industry are the mechanical and electromechanical ones of printing and publishing. In addition, several supplier industries (e.g., printing presses, type foundries, and offset printing) support the publishing industry.

Images

The next commercial information entity to emerge was based on the capture, storage, and printing of stationary images. This industry traces its origins to 1839 when Louis Jacques Mandé Daguerre produced the first daguerreotype, a silver-coated copper plate on which he and his camera had captured and fixed a faithful image from life. The primary industry for images has been photography. Today, however, the imaging industry is large and diverse and includes camera manufacturers, copier makers, filmmakers, industrial and medical filming (such as mammography), etc. Related industries include xerography and mimeography. The functions most emphasized in this industry have been information creation (via capture), storage, and display. The underlying technologies have historically been chemical.

Voice

The telephone industry, created in the 1870s, quickly became the dominant player for voice. The industry includes phone companies and other service providers at the retail level and equipment manufacturers, copper-wire producers, and numerous others at the supplier level. The primary function of the telephone industry has been voice distribution, though recent growth has come about via image (fax) and data transport. The industry has also been involved in the information content business (e.g., the Yellow Pages) and in the voice-display business via the manufacture of terminal equipment such as telephone sets. The principal technological underpinnings of the industry have been in the transmission and switching of electronic signals; however, the technology is moving rapidly toward 100-percent software-controlled digital switching.

Audio/Video

This category is comprised of audio information (music) as well as video information. The entertainment industry has owned these forms of information from the outset. There are two aspects to what we define here as the entertainment industry, and each, in the past, has emphasized a different function. Hollywood, music studios, and television networks have predominantly concentrated on content creation, although there are clearly storage, distribution (done by movie theaters, video, cable television [CATV], or broadcast), and processing aspects to their business. The consumer electronics industry has been based largely on information display. Although some were electrical, the technologies at the heart of this industry have been largely analog, and recently there has been a move toward digitization. Video-based businesses have thus been the most pervasive across the function of a category; they have excelled in content, display, and distribution (broadcast and cable networks).

Data

Data represents the newest of all the form-based information businesses. Here, the major industry has been computing, which has its origins in the tabulating and calculating businesses. From mainframe computers, the industry added minicomputers and then personal computers, workstations, and supercomputers. For computing, the main emphasis has been on information storage and processing. While it was mechanical and electromechanical in its early years, the technological base for this information form was the first to become predominantly electronic and digital.

As described, the technologies underlying these form-dominated industries were inherently different and formed a logical basis for their definition and separation. All of that is changing, however, as the form of each information type becomes digitized. Once voice, text, images, audio/video, and data are translated into their binary equivalents, the rationale of a separate industry to support each becomes unsupportable. In the process, the more recent of these industries (i.e., those on the right side of the matrix in Figure 1) will enjoy significant technological leadership over the others and, thus, may become stronger competitors or consolidators of the total information industry.