The role of the website in a magazine business – revisiting old truths

Hanna-Kaisa Ellonen, Patrik Wikström, Anette Johansson
2015 Journal of Media Business Studies  
This paper explores consumer behavioural patterns on a magazine website. By using a unique dataset of real-life click stream data from 295 magazine website visitors, interesting behavioural patterns are noted: most importantly, 86 % of all sessions only visit the blogs hosted by the magazine. This means that the visitors short-circuit the start page and are not exposed to any editorial content at all, and consequently not to any commercial content on those pages. Sessions visiting editorial
more » ... ent, commercial content or social media links actually represent only one (1) per cent or less of all sessions recorded. Consequently, the online platform gives very limited support for the business model. Our data questions the general assumption that online platforms are key components of a contemporary magazine's business model.
doi:10.1080/16522354.2015.1107334 fatcat:svycutjlxzg6tnp2qxxhgmnyoe