Value And Relationship: Research On Network Media Business Model

Network medium is the qualified news communication company or institution with the Internet. Press institution and its website has always played the professional role of basic news productivity in the past10years, but the flow backward, the marketing space narrow. Business portal website, with news aggregator, and actively filling the continuous "value gap" caused by advances in network technology, traffic leading and revenue considerable. Since Web2.0in2005, user-generated content and social networking, have far-reaching impact on network media. Since the arrival of3G mobile internet in2009, news institution websites and the3traditional business portal face the same challenges:value providing based on individuals, the possible flow down preventing, and the transferring from desktop to mobile internet.Also in2009, the renovation of turning some main press institutions into companies started up, and as a great result, People.com landed on Shanghai A-share market in April2012. Also in April2012, Eastday.com company founded and has been on the road to share market.There are indications that the press institution and its website is moving toward the front desk, the basic approach is to learn from outside the system, conform to the basic law of network economy and still adhere to professional journalism.Business model is the concise description of value creation and value realization, reflecting the business logic of the network economy and its new concerns. The transformation of traditional business portal, and the press website marketing startup, to a large extent, depend on successful business model. On academia, the business model framework proposed by Western scholars since1990s, triggered wide discussions both at home and abroad.Responding to reality and theory, this paper analyzes network media macro-environment with PEST model, and the industrial structure and resources with the tradition of "structure-conduct". Then, it focuses on "value and relationship" along value creation and realization, to reflect the changes of business realities and theory from traditional media to network. Finally, the paper attempts to construct a business model framework of network media, which is expected to be a flexible management tools to analyze managing reality and help strategic decision-making.The paper is based on empirical and normative research. Periodic sampling website data, users surveys, interviews, personal internship experience, case collection, and interpretation of earnings provide lots of empirical materials. Management classic, Media Economics and Communication Studies constitute the theoretical basis of this article, and at the same time, the latest Network Economics and Value Network broaden the research horizon.There are3industrial driving forces:state power and politics as starting force, network technology as revolutionary driving force, the users as fundamental driving force of market and society. With Porter’s Five Forces Model, convergence is the most significant structural feature of network media industry, and the nature of convergence is the breaking down of borders, making "relationship" a prominent managing component. As a revolution of social bottom, Network is making man, money, material, message "nodes", and the relations among these resources can be built more efficiently, and so relations are becoming "resource of resources". Press website resources are concentrated in the government, public institutions, state-owned enterprises, and press system, needing to develop more resources from market and outside its own system.STP is a classical value proposition theory, but "one-way linear, simplistic" limitations are exposed with the latest development of the network economy and media operations. Adding relations thinking is a correction:adding relationship consideration to the "quality and quantity" when users segmenting, identifying the partners, leveraging the relations to enter market and finally position the market with establishing a relationship with the users. People.com needs "the mass" breakthrough. Eastday.com needs being based in Shanghai.Partners, customers and employees, the three relationship objects of network media are the main value creators, and so it is essentially important to develop the three relationships. Strengthening network medium itself, developing strong partners, strengthening integration are the main partnership strategies from Core Competitiveness Perspective. Customer relationship can be subdivided into2levels: the relationship between Media platform and users, the relationship between the users. Sincere and efficient service, the backend setting topics and the front presenting ranking, activating users to create their own value, are the approach to developing customer relationship. To develop employee relationship, it is essential to build a shared vision, carry out substantive communication, and cultivate good organizational culture.Relationship Maintenance is especially important for network media with the feature of "Earnings Delay". Value providing and communication is the principle to Relationship Maintenance. The user relationship is the core. Upgrading services, hatching new platform, and extension to mobile internet, network media continue to create value for the user, and so maintain user’s relationship.Compared to traditional2-Time-Sale and Influence Economics, value realization of network has greatly changed. The General Business Model resulted from competition shows that online AD is to match mass information and present measurable effect, and the AVS is a statistical earnings based on value overflowing. AD and AVS promote each other, while Searching and Weibo AD, QQ community and Weibo enterprise edition are the typical cases respectively. The financial analysis of business portals empirically explain the importance of optimizing profit combination and taking advantage of new media intelligence based on artificial logic-computer language.In summery, network media business model can be divided into three levels, characterized by indirectness and complexity. In theory, the paper constructs a flexible Business Model Framework, which is illustrated and discussed about its weaknesses. Network media are expected to create new combinations with the perspective of Core Competence. According to the Press Website reality, the core competitiveness recognition, consideration of the relationship connotation behind content, and the marketing space and strategy of regional Press Website are discussed.