About the Center

Digital innovations make new markets and business models possible. Understanding the factors associated with the success or failure of these new developments is the key to leveraging the power of digital technologies within organizations and markets.

DIGITS is an academic research center with collaboration from industry and government affiliates. We analyze the impact of digital innovations on business functions, firm strategy and policy across a number of industry verticals.

What's New

DIGITS Releases Study on the Economic Impact of Facebook's Application Platform [PDF]
With more than 750 million active users around the world, Facebook is today's most prominent social utility. Launched in May 2007, the Facebook Platform enables anyone to build social apps on Facebook and the web. Since then, tens of thousands of developers have built hundreds of thousands of applications, or “apps,” spawning an entirely new industry: developers, consultants and agencies who build social apps for others. This study determines the employment impact of that app economy using anonymized data provided by Facebook to evaluate both jobs created by the application economy and the value it contributes to the economy. Read News Release

DIGITS Awarded Grant by Movielabs to Study Cyberlockers and Streaming Media
Over the past few years, movie piracy trends have shifted from traditional peer-to-peer (P2P) networks (BitTorrent, Gnutella, etc.) to direct download (cyberlocker) and streaming websites. Measuring the amount of activity occurring on cyberlocker and streaming sites proves to be extremely difficult as data is transferred directly from hosting site to user. Adding to this challenge is the fact that consumption data on the majority of these sites is closed to public view. In this study we analyze the demand and supply structure of individual movies.

Google Online Marketing Challenge for NGOs
DIGITS, in collaboration with the Center for Social Value Creation and faculty from Marketing, mentor student teams who participate in the Google Online Marketing Challenge for NGOS. Students learn firsthand how to hone their online marketing skills and to give back to their favorite NGO in a meaningful way.

The Evolving Role of Financial Information Management for Systemic Risk Monitoring and Regulation
The Smith School and the Pew Financial Reform Project will sponsor a public reception on Monday November 29 at 6 p.m. to mark the establishment of the Office of Financial Research and to release a National Science Foundation Workshop Report on Knowledge Representation for Financial Information Management