A digital economy is an economy based on electronic goods and services produced by an electronic business

Electronic business

Electronic business, commonly referred to as "eBusiness" or "e-business", or an internet business, may be defined as the application of information and communication technologies in support of all the activities of business...

 and traded through electronic commerce

Electronic commerce

Electronic commerce, commonly known as e-commerce, eCommerce or e-comm, refers to the buying and selling of products or services over electronic systems such as the Internet and other computer networks. However, the term may refer to more than just buying and selling products online...

. That is, a business with electronic production and management processes and that interacts with its partners and customers and conducts transactions through Internet

Internet

The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...

 and Web

World Wide Web

The World Wide Web is a system of interlinked hypertext documents accessed via the Internet...

 technologies.

Digital economy

The concept of a digital economy emerged in the last decade of the 20th century. Nicholas Negroponte

Nicholas Negroponte

Nicholas Negroponte is an American architect best known as the founder and Chairman Emeritus of Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Media Lab, and also known as the founder of the One Laptop per Child Association ....

 (1995) used a metaphor of shifting from processing atoms to processing bits. He discussed the disadvantages of the former (e.g., mass, materials, transport) and advantages of the latter (e.g., weightlessness, virtual, instant global movement).
In this new economy, digital networking and communication infrastructures provide a global platform over which people and organizations devise strategies, interact, communicate, collaborate and search for information.
For example:

• A vast array of digitizable products - databases, news and information, books, magazines, etc which are delivered over the digital infrastructure any time, anywhere in the world.

Digital economy in eGovernment

With growing population and resource mobilisation, digital economy is not limited to business trading and services only but, it encompasses every aspect of life from health to education and from business to banking. Further while everything is happening on digital medium then why not communication with government. eGovernment is already playing its part in this digital economy by providing eservices through various ministry/department to its eCitizen.

See also

• Canada 3.0
  Canada 3.0
  The initial Canada 3.0 forum was held in Stratford, Ontario, Canada on June 8–9, 2009. Over 1500 attendees gathered in Stratford to begin discussions on making Canada a world leader in the digital economy. Canada 3.0 brought together industry leaders, researchers and students to discuss digital...
  
  
• Electronic business
  Electronic business
  Electronic business, commonly referred to as "eBusiness" or "e-business", or an internet business, may be defined as the application of information and communication technologies in support of all the activities of business...
  
  
• Electronic commerce
  Electronic commerce
  Electronic commerce, commonly known as e-commerce, eCommerce or e-comm, refers to the buying and selling of products or services over electronic systems such as the Internet and other computer networks. However, the term may refer to more than just buying and selling products online...
  
  
• Information economy
  Information economy
  Information economy is a term that characterizes an economy with an increased emphasis on informational activities and information industry.The vagueness of the term has three major sources...
  
  
• Internet economy
  Internet Economy
  The internet economy conducts business through markets whose infrastructure is based on the Internet and World-Wide Web. An Internet economy differs from a traditional economy in a number of ways, including: communication, market segmentation, distribution costs, and price.- Internet economy...
  
  
• information society
  Information society
  The aim of the information society is to gain competitive advantage internationally through using IT in a creative and productive way. An information society is a society in which the creation, distribution, diffusion, use, integration and manipulation of information is a significant economic,...
  
  
• Knowledge economy
  Knowledge economy
  The knowledge economy is a term that refers either to an economy of knowledge focused on the production and management of knowledge in the frame of economic constraints, or to a knowledge-based economy. In the second meaning, more frequently used, it refers to the use of knowledge technologies to...
  
  
• Knowledge management
  Knowledge management
  Knowledge management comprises a range of strategies and practices used in an organization to identify, create, represent, distribute, and enable adoption of insights and experiences...
  
  
• Knowledge market
  Knowledge market
  A knowledge market is a mechanism for distributing knowledge resources. There are two views on knowledge and how knowledge markets can function. One view uses a legal construct of intellectual property to make knowledge a typical scarce resource, so the traditional commodity market mechanism can be...
  
  
• Network economy
  Network Economy
  The network economy is the emerging economic order within the information society. The name stems from a key attribute - products and services are created and value is added through social networks operating on large or global scales...
  
  
• Virtual economy
  Virtual economy
  A virtual economy is an emergent economy existing in a virtual persistent world, usually exchanging virtual goods in the context of an Internet game...