YouTube announced today that it’s launching a pilot program that sees a number of its partners offering exclusive content behind a monthly fee. It says the move to paid channels was made after its partners requested more ways to make money beyond ad revenue.

As for details, every paid channel charges a small monthly fee starting at $0.99 a month. The most expensive channel comes in at $7.99 a month. One channel, Smart.TV, gives access to 7 channels under its brand for $9.99 a month. Some channels also offer yearly subscriptions with some as low as $24.99 a year or as high as $67.99 a year.

The selection at the moment isn’t super great, but there are definitely a few standouts. For starters, film studio Asylum is offering its full movies on YouTube for $2.99 a month. My personal favorite is the DHX Retro TV channel which offers episodes of the Super Mario Bros. Super Show and the infamously bad Legend of Zelda cartoon for $2.99 a month.

YouTube notes that subscribers will be able to watch content on PCs, mobile devices and TV. They will also soon be adding the ability to subscribe via mobile devices.

For now, paid channels are only available to specific channels that YouTube picks out. In the coming weeks, however, it will open up a submission process for qualifying channels to apply for a paid channel. If you’re a YouTube creator and are interested in paid channels, you’ll want to tell Google that you’re interested today.

The Daily Mail reports that Google will introduce a YouTube subscription fee this week. The new initiative will allow channels to monetize their content with direct contributions from fans, instead of relying upon ad revenue.

The current report suggests that Google will add 25 to 50 channels to the initial rollout of its subscription service. It will also reportedly cost as little as $2 a month per channel, and doing so will provide a few perks to the subscribers. The biggest, of course, is exclusive content only available to subscribers. The videos will also reportedly be ad-free.

The current rumors, however, don’t address what YouTube intends to offer to non-subscribers. Will subscriber content only be available to those who pay? Or will YouTube allow non-subscribers to watch some content with the support of advertising?

Alongside channel subscriptions, previous rumors also suggested that YouTube would begin monetizing live events. In other words, users could pay a small fee to watch major live events, like the Red Bull Stratos Jump from last year.

There’s still too many variables to even think about with a platform as big as YouTube. The announcement is expected to come sometime this week though. We’ll continue to keep an eye for any such announcement, and bring you all the details as soon as it happens.

Warner Archive Instant is a much more specialized streaming service than the likes of Netflix or Amazon Prime – so much so that’s it’s hard to really call them competitors. Warner Archive Instant offers hundreds of classic and often rare films and TV shows from Warner Bros., MGM, RKO, New Line, Monogram, Allied Artists, Lorimar and more.

The content ranges from the 1920s to a few selections from the 90s. Everything has been upconverted, and you can stream many titles in 1080p HD via Roku.

Some of the most popular selections currently available on the service include classic films A Face in the Crowd and The Prince and the Showgirl, as well as TV shows like Adventures of Superman and 77 Sunset Strip.

They say that new selections will be regularly added to the catalog.

The price per month, once the free trial expires, is a competitive $9.99. As of right now, there are only two way to stream Warner Archive Instant – on your computer via Silverlight or on your Roku device. Warner Archive says that they are currently working on adding more devices.

Like I said before, I don’t really see this new service as a true competitor to wider-reaching streaming services – its content selection is simply too narrow as of right now. But for fans of this type of classic and rare content, it looks like it’s definitely worth a look.

Because the content is so good, people are willing to do just about anything to get to it. For some, that means paying over $100 a month for a cable subscription + HBO. For others who have cut the cord on cable, that usually means pirating it.

But that’s not because they’re cheap, or because they think that the content isn’t worth paying for. Quite the contrary, actually. At least one online campaign showed that people are more than willing to pay HBO, directly, for their content.

And until now, HBO has shut down any and all hopes of their content moving out from under the cable subscription umbrella. Until now.

HBO CEO Richard Plepler gave cordcutters a glimmer of hope this week. Speaking at the Game of Thrones season 3 premiere, Plepler said that offering HBO content (via HBO GO, the company’s on demand content hub) without requiring a cable subscription could maybe possibly might just may be an option, down the line, maybe.

“Right now we have the right model,” Plepler told Reuters. “Maybe HBO GO, with our broadband partners, could evolve.”

He went on to say that they would “have to make the math work.”

Not exactly a signal that HBO is planning to give up on the lucrative cable subscription-based model that has served them so well for so many years, but it sounds like Plepler is aware that the times may be a’ changing. Although abandoning the traditional distirubtion system system may be a shaky business call, Plepler seems to understand that there is an availability issue with HBO content:

“Doesn’t mean we are not mindful that the problem exists,” he said.

If HBO decided to go this route with an internet-packaged HBO deal, they know that they would have plenty of support for the venture. Last summer, a viral campaign saw hundreds of thousands of people take to Twitter and shout, “Take my money, HBO!”

The campaign was simple. Give us a standalone HBO GO service, free of cable requirements, and take our money. As in we’re ready to pay you for your content if you will just let us. People tweeted the price that they might pay for such a service, and the average was an impressive $12+ per month – a couple bucks more than Netflix. Some people even said that they would pay well over $20 per month for a cordless HBO GO service.

The effort received over 163,000 supporters in just two days.

Shortly after, HBO dismissed the whole thing with a single tweet, basically saying that their model was the right model for now. Thanks, but no thanks.

But these few words from HBO’s CEO gives cordcutters a little bit of hope that HBO could break at least a few of their ties with cable. It’s not like it would be a first for the company. Last year they launched HBO Nordic, a standalone streaming service like HBO GO, in Sweden, Finland, Norway, and Denmark. It’s available for under 10 euros per month.

Hope. Let me tell you something my friend. Hope is a dangerous thing. Hope can drive a man insane.

That’s the word from SXSW, where the company has announced that they can now boast 6 million paid subscribers. Back in December, Spotify announced that their paid subscriber total had hit 5 million. In July 2012, it was 4 million. And back in January of 2012, it was 3 million. If you do your math, you’ll notice that it took roughly a year for Spotify to turn 3 million in 5 million, but only 3 months to turn 5 million into 6 million.

Long story short: Spotify is growing faster than it ever has.

It’s not just paid subscriptions that are growing – total users are also up 4 million in the past three months, from 20 to 24 million. Of course, total users counts are great and all, but the big questions is how many unpaid users Spotify can turn into paid users with subscription-only features like mobile play, offline radio, and no advertisements.

Spotify has made a few non-subscriber based headlines in the past few months. Back in December, they made a splash when they acquired the catalog of Metallica, longtime foes of services like Napster. In the past three months, Spotify has landed on a bunch of new devices like TiVo, Roku, and Windows Phone 8.

And they just expanded the beta for their new web player in the U.K. The browser app should be making its way to the U.S. soon.

The patent, US20130030987 A1, doesn’t actually mention “Facebook” in particular – instead goes with less-specific terms like “social networking environment.” But it was definitely filed by CEO Mark Zuckerberg, along with Facebook ads product director Gokul Rajaram and former Facebook product management director Prashant Fuloria.

The patent abstract cuts to the chase:

In one embodiment, a system includes one or more computing systems that implement a social networking environment and are operable to provide paid profile personalization functions to users. In particular embodiments, the user may select one or more social networking objects to replace advertisements or other elements that are normally displayed to visitors of the user’s profile page that are otherwise controlled by the social networking system. In particular embodiments, the user may edit elements on their profile page that are otherwise automatically generated and controlled in design and content by the social networking system. In particular embodiments, the user is billed on a recurring basis for profile personalization.

Key words: Billed, replace ads, edit elements.

The ad replacement model would see them replaced with popular photos or videos or the user’s choosing. The profile customization could come in this form (straight from the application):

“For example, after receiving a large number of comments or “likes” on a particular status message, the user may receive a dialog box prompting the user with the text: ‘Would you like to personalize your profile with this status message for 10 credits a month?’”

Notice the mockup below, that features “favorite memories” and videos on the right-hand side instead of ads:

A patent application doesn’t connote intent. There’s no reason to think that some sort of profile subscription offering is on the way any time soon. The patent, which was just published on January 31st of this year, was actually filed way back in July of 2011. That’s why all of the mockups feature a profile that looks severely outdated.

Having said this, the patent is there and it is clear about what it could do.

Despite what plenty of hoaxes have told you, Facebook will continue to be free. You’ll never have to pay a subscription fee to access the core service, or pay a fee to keep information private. But charging for customized profiles, or to get rid of those pesky ads? That is most certainly a possibility. Would you do it?

[h/t GigaOm]

In all, Google invested over $100 million into new original channels. Recent reports have suggested that Google is investing even more into original YouTube content.

Now, it looks like Google is looking to offer another incentive for content creators to produce for YouTube, as well as another reason for advertisers to flock.

AdAge is reporting that YouTube is gearing up to launch paid channel subscriptions. They quote multiple sources familiar with the plans who say that the paid subscriptions could debut as early as Q2 of this year.

It’s unknown exactly which channels would launch as part of this new model, but the sources said that users would be asked to pay between $1 and $5 a month to gain access to the paid channels.

According to AdAge, “YouTube is also considering charging for content libraries and access to live events, a la pay-per-view, as well as self-help or financial advice shows.”

This is not the first time we’ve heard talk of new paid channel subscriptions. Back in June of last year, YouTube CEO Salr Kamangar talked paid subscriptions at the Reuters Media and Tech Summit. The main focus was on certain cable channels who could find more success on YouTube with a subscription, but he also discussed other content creators on YouTube being able to charge for their content.

The report indicates that any paid subscription model would most likely be small (25 or less channels) at first.

The big question is whether or not YouTube users think there’s anything on YouTube worth paying for – and if not, who can create that?

Recent data from research firm TDG (by way of Paid Content) suggest that cordcutting is becoming more popular, as cable subscriptions are set to decline over the next few years.

But don’t think that it signals the end for payTV. Subscriptions aren’t set to fall off that dramatically. However, it does suggest that the golden age of payTV may be behind us.

The data from TDG shows that 2012 saw a total of 100.8 million U.S. payTV households. That was down roughly 100,000 from 2011, which registered 100.9 million.

They project that subscriptions will fall to 99.3 million in 2013, and keep falling from there.

As you can see, it’s not a massive plunge. They predict that by 2017, cable paid subscriptions will total 94.6 million U.S. households, about 6% less than what we see today. But TDG says that 2011 was the peak, and that the drop off has “long-term tectonic implications.”

That’s because online streaming options will only continue to improve over the next decade and beyond. As of right now, some popular content is monopolized by cable channels – think live sporting events and premium content from networks like HBO and Showtime. And customers are forced to buy big cable packages, even if they only want to watch a few channels. But even a company like HBO, who has kept themselves tucked under the wing of cable (quite stubbornly, we might add) has launched their HBO streaming service as a standalone product in Scandinavia.

Do you think the tide is turning? Have you cut the cord?

Subscriptions for the modern day, Lovecraftian, conspiracy theory-laden MMO are now optional. Players can buy the game for $30 (or €30 or £25) and play all of the story content currently available. Four major updates for the title, which was released back in July, have already been released. Funcom is offering all of the upcoming content in the fifth update and an “Initiate Pack” (which includes weapons, a pet, and social clothing) for players who buy the game before December 31. Starting in January, updates (called “Issues” in Secret World parlance) will be sold for $5 each.

Like nearly all MMOs that have switched to free-to-play, The Secret World still has perks for players who continue to subscribe. Subscribers gain access to a monthly allotment of $10 worth of in-game cash, a monthly item-of-the-month, a 10% discount on all in-game store items, and a Time Accelerator – an item that doubles experience gain for 1 hour, with a 16 hour cool-down. In addition, those who have purchased the Grandmaster Pack get an extra 10% off in-game store items on top of the subscription discount.

According to Spotify, it can now boast 5 million paid subscriptions globally. One million of those paid subscriptions comes from U.S. users.

Back in July, Spotify announced 4 million paid subscriptions and in January the figure was 3 million. At this rate, Spotify is growing roughly one million paying customers every six months.

Of course, Spotify is not only concerned with paid subscribers. Any non-paying user is a potential paying user, any Spotify has plenty of those too. According to the company, it now sports 20 million total active users who have generated over a billion playlists. Back in July, it was 15 million total users – so Spotify basically has the same paid to non-paid user ratio as it did six months ago (3.75 to 4).

Last month, Spotify attracted a $100 million round of funding from Goldman Sachs and Coca-Cola, valuing the company at $3 billion. Just a few days later, we learned that the company was finally working on a web player that will roll out in 2013.

Another interesting stat from Spotify’s announcement? Apparently, users have created more than 4 million different playlists that a simply titled “Love.” I’ll just leave that there with no comment.