Welcome to World 2.0 : the New Digital Ecosystem

Technology, communications, and business are undergoing extensive transformations. The paradigm shift we witness in the Internet, telecommunications, and mobile technologies deeply influences the business world around us. This paper aims to provide a big picture of the new paradigm through the introduction of the concept of ‘‘World 2.0’’. I define World 2.0 as an interactive, hyper-connected, immersive, virtual, digital online ecosystem or mega-platform where users create and share knowledge (e.g. Wikipedia, Delicious), innovate and collaborate together (e.g. InnoCentive), have fun and entertainment (e.g. Zango, Second Life), interact, network or connect with each other (e.g. LinkedIn, Facebook, Skype, or Twitter), design new products or buy and sell merchandise (e.g. Ebay, Craigslist, or Amazon), connect and communicate globally with mobile devices (e.g. iPhone, Blackberry), write reflection blogs (e.g. blogger), share their photos (e.g. flickr), podcast their presentations or make creative films (e.g. YouTube), develop projects (e.g. wikis or Google docs), and express themselves to the world