MEDIA INNOVATION AND BUSINESS MODELS: THE CASE OF END-TO-END IMMERSIVE AUDIOVISUAL SERVICES

This paper analyses how innovation and business models are related in the case of immersive audiovisual services, with a focus on three distribution platforms: HTC's Viveport, Facebook's Oculus Home and Google's YouTube VR. To do so, it first briefly discusses the issues at stake in terms of media innovation, in particular the fact that content innovation is often neglected or misunderstood. After briefly summarizing relevant previous work, it then applies the Business Model Matrix (Ballon, 2009) to these three cases. In particular, the cases are compared in terms of vertical integration, customer ownership, interoperability, revenue model, positioning, user involvement, and the role of content innovation. The paper concludes with a comparison of the cases. It expands the rapidly growing literature on media innovation by using a business model methodology, providing the first instance of an in-depth, structured comparison of immersive audiovisual services from a business point of view. It aims to fill a knowledge gap by dealing with a sector almost ignored by business or economic academic literature.