New media technology and new business models: Speculations on ‘post-advertising’ paradigms

Abstract

This article offers some speculations on the challenges that new media technology poses to the concept and practice of advertising, particularly the impact of open-content technology. It canvasses a number of globalizing trends, notably Web 2.0 technology and culture, user-generated content, and the industry buzz about emerging business models enabled by 2.0. As digital marketing has taken shape and become more technologically driven than ever, advertising is no longer the only, nor even the primary, source of revenue for new media. Apart from mapping the new terrain, the paper examines some 2.0 revenue models for the purpose of inviting researchers to think beyond the parameters set by plain old advertising. On the methodological front, the paper argues that keeping ourselves abreast of new revenue strategies brings to the fore a number of key areas of investigation hitherto understudied by academic advertising researchers, in particular media technology and digital copyright protocols.