World society has evolved from the industrial age to the information age. The Industrial Age was characterized by "Bricks and Mortar" and large capitol  investments in plant an equipment; e.g., steel mills, railroads, assembly lines, etc.

The Information Age is characterized by precise, ubiquitous, complete, low cost, and global  availability of information about anything.  This has been made possible by the world wide web which is a communications network  with links to the level of individual people.  The results include: 

1) "Virtuality";  The virtual office, school, mall, market, bank, etc;

2)"Electronic Commerce"   the global market place;  "24/7/365" nonstop public and private business; With optimum efficiency and minimum cost.

3)"Global collaboration"  the precise, analytical use of information gathered from around the world at any time, from anyplace.  This dramatically reduces the float time between problem and solution. 

These are a few of the information age concepts that are profoundly changing the functioning of world society.