Issue link: https://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/52321
The Rise of the 'App Economy' Tepper Gets Ready for Close-Up PROFESSORS AT CARNEGIE Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, used to have to travel off campus to give interviews to media outlets. But now, any CMU professor need only go to a fully equipped television studio in the Tepper School of Business to provide his or her expert commentary to the global television media. Built through an arrangement with the Pittsburgh Videotech Center (PVTC), a division of Pittsburgh International Telecommunications, the studio is equipped with satellite and fiber connectivity. PVTC owns the equipment and provides the crew to help professors rehearse, finalize technical details, and broadcast the interview. Administrators hope that having such a convenient broadcast venue will result in more frequent media appearances by CMU professors and added exposure for the school. Amazon reports that since April 1, 2011, it has been selling 105 e- books for its Kindle e-reader for every 100 books it has been selling in print. In addition, it reports that it sold three times more e-books during the first five months of 2011 than during the same period in 2010. A STUDY FROM the University of Maryland's Robert H. Smith School of Business in College Park finds that the explosion of Face- book and mobile technology appli- cations has become a source of job creation. This emerging "App Economy" has added 182,000 new jobs to the workforce and contrib- uted more than US$12.19 billion in wages and benefits to the U.S. economy in 2011, according to researchers at the school's Center for Digital Innovation, Technology, and Strategy. In fact, the research- ers note that those numbers could be as high as 235,644 jobs and $15.71 billion. Il-Horn Hann and Siva Viswa- nathan, co-directors of the cen- ter and associate professors of information systems, conducted the economic analysis that led to these findings. They also measured the number of people employed to build, develop, and consult on Facebook applications. They found that Facebook apps alone—such as the popular Farmville app—have generated more than 53,000 new jobs at software companies. "Our findings confirm that social media platforms have cre- ated a thriving new industry," says Hann. "As Facebook and other platforms grow, we will continue to see job growth and the ripple effects of these advances in the U.S. economy." The white paper is available at www.rhsmith.umd.edu/digits/pdfs_ docs/research/2011/AppEconomy Impact091911.pdf. BizEd January/February 2012 59