Digital economy

Digital economy refers to an economy that is based on digital computing technologies. The digital economy is also sometimes called the Internet Economy, the New Economy, or Web Economy. Increasingly, the "digital economy" is intertwined with the traditional economy making a clear delineation harder.

Definition

The term 'Digital Economy' was coined in Don Tapscott's 1995 best-seller The Digital Economy: Promise and Peril in the Age of Networked Intelligence. The Digital Economy was among the first books to show how the Internet would change the way we did business. It became an international best-seller within one month of its release, appearing on a number of best-seller lists, including the New York Times Business Book list and a seven-month run on the BusinessWeek best sellers list. BusinessWeek also named The Digital Economy the top selling business book for 1996.

According to Mesenbourg (2001), three main components of the 'Digital Economy' concept can be identified: