Price Issues in Delivering E-Content On-Demand

The explosive increase in Internet bandwidth and usage opens a vista of opportunities to sell multimedia-rich software and services using the Internet. Once e-content is created, the cost of replication is negligible. Customers can download the e-content immediately after online transactions. Alternately, the content provider can stream the content to the customers. A sound business model is necessary for the success of such an enterprise. In this paper, we examine the determinants of revenue for an Internet based on-demand content delivery service. The determinants of revenue are: transaction model, pricing strategy, customer behavior, distribution resources, and competition. We briefly describe each of these factors and discuss how they relate to revenue. Our belief is that by better understanding how these factors affect revenue, content providers can develop services that generate more revenue while also being more compelling to users.