In the parlance of internet marketing speak, there is a distinction between the web as principally an awareness media versus a relationship media. The idea being that people want to use the internet not principally as a reference library, but as a way to meet, and talk to, a reference librarian. It is not smart TV, but smart telephony.

From this argument, the most important part of any website is the physical address, email address and 800 number attached to any given page. The supporting evidence for this argument could be the findings from this last X-mas buying season where large catalog sales companies found that customers spent more time with the service people on the phone if they had the web in front of them, than if they had the print catalog in front of them. So you can give people all the information to people in virtual space, but it comes down to it they mainly want social interaction. I am deeply hopeful this means we won't all be put to pasture but the cyborg educator of the near future. So are we in the information age, or the relationship age.