Understanding the Web from an Economic Perspective: The Evolution of Business Models and the Web

The advent of the World Wide Web is arguably amongst the most important changes that have occurred since the 1990s in the business landscape. It has fueled the rise of new industries, supported the convergence and reshaping of existing ones and enabled the development of new business models. During this time the web has evolved tremendously from a relatively static pagedisplay tool to a massive network of user-generated content, collective intelligence, applications and hypermedia. As technical standards continue to evolve, business models catch-up to the new capabilities. New ways of creating value, distributing it and profiting from it emerge more rapidly than ever. In this paper we explore how the World Wide Web and business models evolve and we identify avenues for future research in light of the web?s ever-evolving nature and its influence on business models.