INTERACTIVE MEDIA

Business Models for Interactive Media

Business Models for Interactive Media

Introduction

Advent of new technologies into a society initiates an endless series of effects, especially for those who have and use the technology compared with those who do not or cannot. For all media stakeholders, the need to understand, participate in, and capitalize effectively on technological advancements is a constant challenge (Graham 2002). For regulators, the task of protecting and promoting public interest concerns associated with mass communication is greatly complicated by ongoing technological change. This paper explores the various business models which the interactive media companies have exercised over the years.

Discussion

Since the beginning of web business, executives and entrepreneurs have searched for the perfect business model. This quest can be segmented into three distinct phases. In the first phase, Internet entrepreneurs took their inspiration from offline business models, because this is what consumers and businesses readily understood. During the first phase, several of these modules went through bubbles of popularity of their own. This is where the financial analysts and the journalists come in; they hyped certain business models as the best was to monetize Internet business. Our point is that each business model has gone through a period of massive investor and media interest - contributing to a boom or start-up activity surrounding the model and fallout later. The historical hype phase associated with each business model also had a positive effect; however, it was important in accelerating the evolution of each model.

Services were among the first Internet businesses to be hyped. The online agency iXI headed up a boom to consolidate Internet agencies which were making a living selling web development services. iXI. Enterprises Inc. was founded in March 1996 but it was basically an acquisition vehicle for several agencies founded in previous Years. One of the ...