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Erica Morrissette, Riley Murray, Simon Pierpont, Julie Nagel, and David Muite
The world of internet and technology transforms how we receive our media, and is continually evolving. This interactive platform raises new opportunities for companies to generate revenue. Typically, media forms follow set business rules, but with the ever-changing technologies companies are still working to find the best way to make money utilizing interactive media forms. These work differently than traditional media, and as a result require less conventional financial models. While video games tend to make up their own industry and work in a typical business framework, internet and augmented reality are a technology, not and industry, because of this their financial frameworks are unique.
Internet
The Internet is much more than meets the eye. What began as a way for colleges and universities to transfer information at a rapid pace, has grown into “the world is at your fingertips” web we know today. The Internet industry is a unique business in how those players in the market make their money, given their specific financial plan. There are many different financial models for the Internet that are specific to the needs of the company at hand.
The first of the financial models is the Merchant or Brokerage model. The merchant model follows a business to consumer plan through the use of online stores such as Target.com. The Brokerage model is different in that instead of being specific to one company, the brokerage model brings together businesses from all over to sell their products on one platform: Amazon.com (Duff).
The Infomediary and Affiliate models are very different in that the infomediary model deals with subtly conveying information about a product. The product “Head On” which was marketed as a headache reducer had an infomercial for their advertisement and followed the infomediary model. An affiliate model is varied from infomediary because it deals with websites using products you have previously searched for to scope you towards your next purchase (Duff).
Working similarly to the way subscription based revenue works for magazine and newspaper companies, another financial model is the subscription model. Companies such as the Wall Street Journal are turning to online subscriptions for their revenue. Salesforce.com, uses a Utility platform as they charge users a base rate in order to access their software (Duff).
Google, Amazon, YouTube, and more all use an advertising model that makes money through using paid text advertisements and through selling the user’s search history to companies such as Amazon who can, in turn, tailor their marketing plan for each individual user (Duff).
Video Games
The video game industry is a massive business globally. This industry has been making money since 1962 when MIT student Steve Russell created the first computer-based video game titled “Spacewar!” (Pavlik and McIntosh). In the year 1980, Namco released Pac-Man, which wen