> "Are they crazy? Yes," says Gene DeRose, president of
> Jupiter Communications Inc., a market research firm in
> New York. "I think the market is too premature, and they
> haven't proven they have anything so special that merits
> charging while others are free."
>
> However, he adds, "I do think you have to move toward a
> chargeable model in order to sustain yourself."
IMHO, it's not real viable w/o micropayment. The Web is the ultimate impulse
marketplace, and subs. fees just aren't.
Rohit
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April 10, 1996 6:45 PM ET
Time Warner to charge for access to its Web site
By _Rusty Weston_
Time Warner Inc., the world's largest media company, on Thursday is expected
to announce a scheme to turn Pathfinder--its digital flagship--into a profit
center.
Pathfinder is the much-ballyhooed World-Wide Web home of dozens of popular
Time Warner properties, including magazines such as Sports Illustrated, Time,
and People, as well as broadcasting and film studios HBO and Warner Bros. The
site, which reportedly received 4 million hits daily, is the best known
consumer destination on the Web.
Although the site has earned several millions of dollars in advertising
revenue since its inception in October 1994, it has not turned a profit,
company executives acknowledged.
Fee-based or subscription services are heralded as a key effort to make
Pathfinder and other Web content sites profitable.
The move to fee-based Web access is being closely watched by both the
Internet and publishing communities because few well-known Web businesses have
yet succeeded with this business model.
"Are they crazy? Yes," says Gene DeRose, president of Jupiter Communications
Inc., a market research firm in New York. "I think the market is too
premature, and they haven't proven they have anything so special that merits
charging while others are free."
However, he adds, "I do think you have to move toward a chargeable model in
order to sustain yourself."