Information is expressed either as the content of a message or through direct or indirect observation. Information can be transmitted in time, via data storage, and space, via communication and telecommunication.
Data can represent redundant symbols, but approaches information through optimal data compression. The difference is that information resolves uncertainty. Thus the concept becomes synonymous to notions of constraint, communication, control, data, form, education, knowledge, meaning, understanding, mental stimuli, pattern, perception, proposition, representation, and entropy. The concept of information has different meanings in different contexts.
More technically, information can be thought of as the resolution of uncertainty it answers the question of 'What an entity is' and thus defines both its essence and the nature of its characteristics.
For example, a single customer’s sale at a restaurant is data – this becomes information when the business is able to identify the most popular or least popular dish. It provides context for data and enables decision making.
Information, in a general sense, is processed, organised and structured data.
