Microsoft to Pull Free Chat for Paid Service

Microsoft Corp. will be closing its free chat rooms in 28 countries and moving them to a subscription service in the United States, Canada and Japan over concerns the forums have become a haven for junk e-mail and sex predators.

According to Microsoft “As part of an overall effort by MSN and Microsoft to provide consumers with a safer, more secure and positive overall online experience, MSN has decided to no longer offer MSN Chat in this market beginning October 14 2003.

This change is intended to help protect MSN users from unsolicited information such as spam and to better protect children from inappropriate communication online. We will ensure you get the best and safest customer experience during those last weeks where free unmoderated chat will still be available.”

The move to pull the plug on free chat and transfer over to a paid subscription service is a gutsy move by Microsoft but if successful, Yahoo may also follow course in developing a clean, spam free, moderated, and yes… paid for chat environment.

Such a move will also expand the successful paid content model used by Yahoo and Microsoft along with other Internet companies with such services as online dating, business and entertainment sites.

According to a recent study by the OPA and comScore consumer spending for online content in the U.S. grew to $748 million in the first half of 2003, an increase of 23% over the same period in 2002. U.S. consumers spent $214.3 million on Personals/Dating content in the first half of 2003, an increase of 76% from the first two quarters of last year. With the success of paid for online dating (which was once free on MSN, Yahoo and other sites) it should not be a surprise that Microsoft has taken this bold step to simplify its current spam filled and risqué chat rooms into a profitable business addition which capitalizes on the web friendly and money spending youth.

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