Towards a taxonomy of e-commerce: Characterizing content creator-based business models

Abstract

Currently, new business models can be observed in content creator-based e-commerce. The research on e-commerce has grown rapidly and new concepts have emerged such as social commerce, platforms, and user-generated content. However, no overarching perspective has yet been formulated for distinguishing new content creator-based business models within ecommerce. The aim of this paper is therefore to characterize content creator-based business models by formulating a taxonomy of e-commerce based on a structured literature review of the concepts mentioned above. The results of our study point toward eight types of content creatorbased business models. Our paper outlines theoretical and practical implications for the emerging phenomenon of content creator-based business, which we refer to as intellectual commerce. In addition, we describe 19 concepts related toWeb 1.0,Web 2.0, and e-commerce.