Here’s a definition of the digital economy from Wikipedia Encyclopedia, an organization itself created as a result of the Internet: “A digital economy is an economy that is based on electronic goods and services produced by an electronic business and traded through electronic commerce. That is, a business with electronic production and management processes and that interacts with its partners and customers and conducts transactions through Internet and Web technologies”.
Al Gore popularized the term Information Superhighway (which became synonymous with the internet) during his term as U.S. Vice President. Over the years, we used this economic highway to surf for jobs, buy books, as a research tool for school and business and even to shop for cars and houses. Fast forward to today and you can not only buy a house outright using the Web, you can now run your home on an iPad- turn off lights, air or appliances when they're not in use, even program them to turn on and off at certain times.
But given our economic picture of late, is this digital engine faltering? The answer is a resounding NO- if anything, it’s moving into overdrive. Patrick Pichette, CFO at Google, recently commented[1] that the digital economy is exploding. He says the ‘economy’ and the ‘digital economy’ are different. And he’s suggesting the digital economy is going gangbusters with the relentless drive on computing power, connectivity and the Internet in general. He foresees an exponential growth in business opportunities particularly with social media and mobile applications. These are key areas for Google’s future revenue streams.
We concur (whew!) with Google’s direction on mobile applications and social media. Our hereiam™ service is geared to the mobile professional and we are device independent. We work on Google’s Android devices, RIM’s Blackberries, Apple iPhones, Symbian and Microsoft Windows mobile phones. With social media, Google will probably make tons of money on it. We’ll use their stuff and others as fundamental building blocks to doing business. The real upside to social media is that it gives us much cheaper and potentially viral marketing possibilities that weren’t possible even a few years ago. When our company was ‘introduced’ in the market by MaRS[2], we got the most Internet hits since we started business! For us, the ability of using social media to market services is extremely cost effective. We can also target a technology-aware group of individuals ripe for our service. Almost every company we work with has included social media as a basic means of doing business.
But the world is also becoming a bit more astute and parochial in what the digital economy should and should not give us. Canada’s RIM and China’s Huawei Technologies and ZTE Corp have recently been the subject of a lot of criticism for not allowing countries (first United Arab Emirates, then Saudi Arabia, India, Lebanon and Algeria) to control the types of information allowed on their devices. The premise here is terrorism but the logic can start restricting content by the powers of government. Google and China are having a major run-in on what can be allowed and this is on-going. Craigslist- originally an electronic shopping mall for everything- shut down its adult services listings last week. The move comes after 17 state attorneys general pressured the company to do so. If anything, up until now there has been very little regulation in content on this highway - these moves are trying to determine what can and cannot be said or (by extension) bought and sold digitally.
Just think, when the Information Superhighway started there was no Google, Apple was a computer maker and Microsoft did not even acknowledge the Internet. Today we have tablets[3] and mobile devices that will literally transform how we envision the digital economy to work. Indeed, the digital economy is at a very formidable stage.
[1] Interviewed by Matt Hartley for National Post, published Sept. 4th, 2010
[2] A public-private partnership in Toronto, Ontario created to better connect the worlds of science, business and government and in support of creating new business.
[3] “Half of the Fortune 100 are testing or deploying iPads", Apple's Chief Operating Officer Tim Cook, July 2010.
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