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Informal publishing flourished in the World Wide Web environment, where every user with a sufficient level of access can become a publisher. Although it appears that in such an environment intermediation in the distribution and sharing of information becomes unnecessary, the uneven quality of information and resulting quality uncertainty of information users, together with the increased search efforts, represent a sufficient reason for information and knowledge intermediaries to preserve and even reinforce their roles. Large-scale efforts in knowledge management pursued by industry leaders highlight the need for "new" intermediation.The paper focuses on economic and business issues in the distribution and sharing of Internet based information and digital products. We address the inefficiency of the pure exchange model in "information markets" that is analyzed based on double coincidence of wants and the lack of discernment on the part of users (many of them occasional users) about the market and intrinsic value of informational and digital products. These inefficiencies can be remedied with the introduction of recognizable currencies, which do not have to be of monetary nature, and the situation can be further improved with intermediation. We conclude that "virtual communities" and intermediation are important in ameliorating the efficiency of the distribution of the electronic information and quality of informational goods. This point of view is supported by the success of the new Internet-based intermediaries, such as Yahoo.