Research On Evolution Of China’s Internet Communication Modes During1998-2012

Internet communication is like a scale. Information and personal interaction are laid on the each side. People need not only basic information transfer, but also eager to have more interactions. Therefore, Internet communication is showing more intensive power, and this power has been deeply affecting people’s lifestyle, behavior and interaction. Throughout the history of human communication, the essence is changing process of communication medium or tools (Bai,2001). In this context, we attempt to sketch the evolution track of Internet communication mode and try to explain the reason why it changes in this way based on the perspectives of technical support and supply-demand force.After collecting and sorting the secondary and qualitative data, we adopt the qualitative and quantitative method and historical analysis method to analyze these data and information, and we found that due to technologic innovation and users’need, new Internet communication tools emerges one after one. They are respectively BBS, Instant Messaging, Blog, Social Network Sites and Microblog. As we know, there is fierce competition in online communication market, and new communication tools have constituted huge threats to the previous. Interestingly, no one is knocked out and they grow to a coexisting situation. This finding has been proved by a simple variance analysis and also been explained by analyzing each ones’basic function and secondary functions. Thus, it’s supposed that the reason why these six communication tools coexist is the specific functions of each communication tools have satisfied users’different needs and secondary functions reduces the possibility of transferring to another means of communication to some extent. According to "China Internet Development Statistics Report" published by CNNIC, we sort out each ones’user scale and usage and found that the competition among these six online communication tools can be divided into three stages, that is:(1) Email leading the way(1998-2006),(2) IM’s exceeding (2006-2009) and (3) The rise of social and interactive tools. After combing each communication tools’key technical conditions and analyze the value captured by users and service providers, we have solved the research questions.The paper attempts to draw an evolutionary picture of Internet communication modes, and explains the reason why they changes from the technology and supply-demand perspective. What we do can enrich and expand the scope and perspective about studies related to online communication. And the results provide a more intuitive and comprehensive reference for future researchers to launch in-depth research, but also available for Internet companies to refer.