28. Business Applications and Revenue Models

Abstract

With the maturation of its technology, Peer-to-Peer applications have come increasingly into the focus of business. The promise to do business in a faster, more cost-effective and flexible way has lead to the rise of various start-ups as well as the engagement of established market players. They have created a broad variety of Peer-to-Peer business applications and services that have come to the market. However, there has to be a viable revenue model behind these business applications and services to lead them to economic success. In other words, applications should not only be highly successful in terms of adoption rates, like Instant Messaging, but also in terms of revenue generation. This chapter contains a discussion of revenue models for Peer-to-Peer business applications.