Advertising agencies look for new model in the era of the Internet

Disintermediation-or cutting out the middle man-may jeopardize an otherwise promising future for advertising companies and force them to strive for new business models in the near future, said experts.

"I do believe that ... advertising companies have been losing influence in China's service industry," said Chen Gang, head of the School of Journalism and Communication at Peking University.

In the next five to 10 years, traditional forms of advertising (newspaper ads and TV commercials, for instance) face fundamental change, Chen said.