What is the Feasible Business Model in the Age of Big Data? Case Studies on the Business Models of Two Chinese Mobile Applications

摘要

The present day mobile application's pick-and-shovel business is not thriving, as the vast majority of developers make very little revenue. In order to gain insights into mobile application business model, we conduct longitudinal case studies on two Chinese high profile health-fitness applications. The results of our study show both applications have experienced three significant business model innovations, from the initial freemium, hardware-application hybrid, and open source-based coopetition. We discuss the impact of these business models on value creation and appropriation. We thereby advocate that in the age of Web 3.0, embracing open source movement in an application's business model is a smart move to turn competitors into collaborators and hence achieve a positive sum game. Our study contributes to the technology management literature by integrating the business model perspective with an analysis of open source. This also adds to the existing business ecosystem conceptualizations, which do not explicitly take competitors into account.