less free content

[Doug Henwood]

>TIME SAID READY TO UNPLUG FREE CONTENT
>
>NEW YORK (CBS.MW) -- Free access to Time Inc.'s most popular magazines
>could disappear from the Internet. The AOL Time Warner (AOL) 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. The upshot: some of that content may
>migrate to the company's subscription-based America Online service.
>
>Details of such a shift could be announced at a meeting that AOL will
>conduct next week with analyst during with it will detail its business
>strategy, the Journal said. Chunks, if not all, of  Entertainment Weekly
>(http://www.ew.com/ew/),  People (http://www.people.com/) and  Teen
>People (http://www.teenpeople.com/teenpeople/) magazines could be the
>first to be made available only via AOL. Such a move by Time Inc. would
>certainly be seen as strong endorsement of paid content online. Back
>before its merger with AOL, Time Warner was one of the first major
>publishers to embrace publishing on the Web, with Pathfinder.com,
>launched nearly a decade ago.