l Social Media Business Model Analysis - Case Tencent, Facebook, and Myspace

Logistics Master's thesis Xiaoyan Hu 2011

Department of Information and Service Economy Aalto University School of Economics

ABSTRACT
The term of social media is becoming increasingly popular presently, the amount of social media users is growing dramatically, and the monetization of social media has been discussed in publications but not in details. Nowadays, the most frequently used approach to make money for social media is online advertising. However, the successful company like Tencent proves other potentials of monetization. Because the business model is critical to make profit for a company, a company’s financial performance could be better
26 2.9 Summary and Questions Raised by Literature Review ........................................ 27 3. Business Model Framework ............................................................................................ 29 3.1 Definitions of Business Model ................................................................................... 29 3.2 Business Model Components Framework .............................................................. 30 3.3 Modified Business Model Framework ...................................................................... 34 4. Research Methodology .................................................................................................... 40 4.1 Research Framework ................................................................................................. 40 4.2 Research Methods ...................................................................................................... 42 5. Empirical Study.................................................................................................................. 46 5.1 Background of Case Companies .............................................................................. 47 5.1.1 Tencent .................................................................................................................. 47 5.1.2 Facebook ............................................................................................................... 49 5.1.3