Jumlah pengguna internet di seluruh dunia hamper tembus angka 2 miliar orang pada akhir tahu atau hampir

menjangkau sepertiga penduduk dunia. Demikian data statistik internet world stats pengguna internet yang demikian besar menciptakan peluang dan potensi baru dalam bidang ekonomi . Berbagai kegiatan ekonomi telah dapat dilakukan via intenet. Kemajuan di bidang internet telah mengubah cara perdagangan tradisonal ke perdaganagan elektronik. Kegiatan ekonomi yang erjaid di internet menimbulkan istila internet economy. Definisi internet economy dari www.economyweb.com/

The Internet Economy is an economy that is based on electronic goods and services produced by the electronic business and traded through electronic commerce. The Internet Economy refers to conducting 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. Sedangkan definisi dari wikipedia en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Economy

The Internet Economy refers to conducting 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.

Kegiatan ekonomi yang terjadi di internet menimbulkan banyak istilah istilah baru apabila kita bandingkan antara ekonomi tradisional dan internet ekonomi maka kita bisa melihat:

The Internet economy includes all business and commerce conducted through and within the infrastructure of the Internet. It has become a major underlying component of the global economy in a relatively short period of time. Since the very first dot-com business was born in 1985, the Internet economy has given rise to more than 80 million new dot-coms and established an entirely new way of doing business around the world. With information moving so quickly around the world, the way both consumers and companies do business has evolved.

Commercial websites fall into at least one of eight possible categories: search and portal, storage and infrastructure, information, entertainment, communication and social networking, ecommerce, brand and personal identity and crime. In most developed nations, almost every business has an online identity at the very minimum, even if it is not actually selling products online. This has made it possible not only for consumers to become more knowledgeable, but has also allowed businesses to reach a wider range of potential customers than ever before.

s opposed to the traditional economy, the digital economy has transformed the way businesses operate. This is true in terms of distribution costs, communication, market segmentation and price. Electronic commerce not only has grown the global marketplace, it has fundamentally changed how businesses market and sell their products and how consumers shop and access services online. The Internet economy provides new platforms for business innovation, but also brings with it concerns about privacy, reliability and access. As the Internet economy continues to grow, new concerns and challenges are likely to arise.

Due to the enormous quantity of connected users, the incredible speed that information travels, and the irrelevance of distance, firms can offer goods and services not locally, but to potential customers across the entire globe. As stated by Gregory Mankiw (2003) Advances in information technology, such as the Internet, have been profound and have influenced many parts of the economy. As an example of a business segment which can dramatically benefit from this new Internet economy is a university. Besides been able to provide education to on-campus students, it is possible now to provide online classes across the world, using streaming media technology to deliver the very same class to anyone plugged to the Internet, with lower costs.