The debate over paid content is steadily growing. Today Ann S Moore, the chief executive of Time Inc, says that the US magazine giant is considering making its most successful titles Time.com and People.com subscription based.In an interview in the Daily Telegraph today Moore told the paper that current round of cost savings and restructuring plans did not deal with the fundamental issue facing traditional media groups worldwide – how to make money from the internet.The latest entrant into the paid content debate follows, New York suburban tabloid Newsday saying it will charge for content and the Guardian's Tim Brooks at the FT's Digital Media Conference saying that if he could get his "wish this year it would be that New York Times would put up a pay wall, then we could achieve all our objectives". Moore said she thinks it is time for Time Inc to sit down and seriously ask the question what is the model for the future of content. She said that group would "have to figure out a way to have paid content in the future" and that it is considering making its most successful websites, such as Time.com and People.com, subscription-based."Who started this rumour that all information should be free and why didn't we challenge this when it first came out? I say this in college classrooms and they start to throw their shoes at me. I say, 'Kids, your food is not free and your cars are not free, your clothes are not free. Good information costs money. Someone has to pay for the Baghdad bureau'," Moore told the paper.Like most people in the media business Moore says she does not know whether online subscriptions will work, but knows alternative revenue streams have to be tried.Her comments follows the piece in Time by Walter Isaacson, a former managing editor of the magazine, who proposed a plan one-click micro-payments system. Her comments appear to demonstrate the business very publicly thinking aloud to extend the paid content debate.
"I don't know what the business model is, but we are going to start pursuing it. People pay for the Wall Street Journal online," Moore said.
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