CBS MarketWatch -> Time said ready to unplug free content
Werblog -> "The end of free?. CBS MarketWatch: "Free access to Time Inc.'s most popular magazines could disappear from the Internet. The AOL Time Warner unit has concluded that providing Web content at no charge hurt circulation and that Web-based advertising is too meager to make up the difference, the Wall Street Journal reported."
If this happens, it could be the tipping point for commercial print content no longer being available for free on the Web. Which might not be such a bad thing. My guess is that the worthwile commercial content sources will be available for a modest fee or bundled with print subscriptions. Moreover, the elimination of this free material will make the non-commercial content such as blogs and the Web-only material such as Slate and Salon more valuable. It will create more pressure for syndication and aggregation tools to make that mass of content accessible to those without loads of free time. It would be a nice piece of symbolism. After all, Pathfinder (Time Warner's original online foray) was the project that brought big media to the Web... and showed how poorly they understood it."
11:37:38 AM 
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