Adding Value with Collective Intelligence – A Reference Framework for Business Models for User-Generated Content

Abstract

Many web-based business models started to harnessing collective intelligence by integrating users and customers into the value-adding process. With common web applications users have the chance to be a significant provider of contents and can commit themselves to deliver. Today, more and more companies detect the commercial potential of this user-generated content (UGC). Amazon, for example, is one of the pioneers in integrating customers and users for providing comments and evaluations. More and more, business models started to evolve which build on UGC at their core. These UGC business models define a certain business model type which bases its primary service offering on UGC.This paper describes and analyzes building blocks of business models for UGC to be found in the existing literature and in case studies. For that, the research method of multiple case study analysis is employed. As a result, a reference framework for business models for UGC is proposed, which can be used for the definition, development, comparison as well as the assessment of such business models.