There’s an interesting article on BusinessWeek online called “The Power Of Us“. Rather than comment I’ll post this little slice to whet your appetite:

The nearly 1 billion people online worldwide — along with their shared knowledge, social contacts, online reputations, computing power, and more — are rapidly becoming a collective force of unprecedented power. For the first time in human history, mass cooperation across time and space is suddenly economical. “There’s a fundamental shift in power happening,” says Pierre M. Omidyar, founder and chairman of the online marketplace eBay Inc.

The author includes a fair number of example companies; from Skype to P&G, from LEGO to Second Life. Sounds like an intersection between the real and the virtual to me. Highly recommended reading.

(cross-posted to the Core77 blog)