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In this reflective article we discuss the potential of recent developments in virtual worlds for offering novel value propositions for the digital transformation of society and business. In particular, we consider the role of a Metaverse, understood as a globally accessible 3D virtual space and computing infrastructure—and today still a conceptual vision—as a mediator between technology trends and societal and business applications. We outline how current technology trends can be linked with high-value added application scenarios through the Metaverse as a mediating design space. Our insights project both a push effect, i.e. novel technologies fostering radical shifts in society and business, as well as a pull effect, i.e. radical ideas stimulating technology developments. Leveraging both effects for creating high-value added applications however, requires an integrated, mediating design space, which can potentially be obtained through advances of virtual worlds towards a Metaverse.

Smart mobility is a central issue in the recent discourse about urban development policy towards smart cities. The design of innovative and sustainable mobility infrastructures as well as public policies require cooperation and innovations between various stakeholders—businesses as well as policy makers—of the business ecosystems that emerge around smart city initiatives. This poses a challenge for deploying instruments and approaches for the proactive management of such business ecosystems. In this article, we report on findings from a smart city initiative we have used as a case study to inform the development, implementation, and prototypical deployment of a visual analytic system (VAS). As results of our design science research we present an agile framework to collaboratively collect, aggregate and map data about the ecosystem. The VAS and the agile framework are intended to inform and stimulate knowledge flows between ecosystem stakeholders in order to reflect on viable business and policy strategies. Agile processes and roles to collaboratively manage and adapt business ecosystem models and visualizations are defined. We further introduce basic categories for identifying, assessing and selecting Internet data sources that provide the data for ecosystem models and we detail the ecosystem data and view models developed in our case study. Our model represents a first explication of categories for visualizing business ecosystem models in a smart city mobility context.