Lesson plan
Infomediary
An infomediary works as a personal agent on behalf of consumers to help them take control over information gathered about them for use by marketers and advertisers. The concept of the infomediary was first suggested by former McKinsey consultant John Hagel III and former Harvard Business School professor Jeffrey Rayport in their article The Coming Battle for Customer Information. The concept was explored in greater depth in Hagel's book (co-authored with McKinsey partner Marc Singer) Net Worth: Shaping Markets When Customers Make the Rules. Infomediaries operate on the assumption that personal information is the property of the individual described, not necessarily the property of the one who gathers it. The infomediary business model recognizes that there is value in this personal data and the infomediary seeks to act as a trusted agent, providing the opportunity and means for clients to monetize and profit from their own information profiles. One of the first focused implementations of the infomediary concept was an online advertising company called AllAdvantage launched in 1999. While that company did not survive the bursting of the "dot-com bubble," in more recent years there has been renewed interest in the infomediary concept, with entrepreneurs and investors building companies to identify and leverage the market value of consumers' information.…
Article summary
An infomediary works as a personal agent on behalf of consumers to help them take control over information gathered about them for use by marketers and advertisers. The concept of the infomediary was first suggested by former McKinsey consultant John Hagel III and former Harvard Business School professor Jeffrey Rayport in their article The Coming Battle for Customer Information. The concept was explored in greater depth in Hagel's book (co-authored with McKinsey partner Marc Singer) Net Worth: Shaping Markets When Customers Make the Rules. Infomediaries operate on the assumption that personal information is the property of the individual described, not necessarily the property of the one who gathers it. The infomediary business model recognizes that there is value in this personal data and the infomediary seeks to act as a trusted agent, providing the opportunity and means for clients to monetize and profit from their own information profiles. One of the first focused implementations of the infomediary concept was an online advertising company called AllAdvantage launched in 1999. While that company did not survive the bursting of the "dot-com bubble," in more recent years there has been renewed interest in the infomediary concept, with entrepreneurs and investors building companies to identify and leverage the market value of consumers' information.…
Key claims
No claims recorded.
Discussion questions
- Summarise the article in your own words. Which single claim would you verify first, and why?
- Which claim in this article is most likely to be revised as the sources update? How would you check its current status?
- If two sources disagreed about one of these facts, what would you need in order to trust one over the other?
Bibliography
No sources recorded.
Key claims and bibliography are generated from the same tracked claims and sources as the article page.