Intel warns no money in Web content

Sean Maloney, a senior VP of the Intel Corporation, has warned that companies hoping to make money with Internet content are on to a hiding for nothing.

Maloney, on a whistle-stop trip to London to pledge support for the Science Museum, said that there was currently no way to meter sites with rich content. "I don’t know of anyone that charges for content apart from porno sites," he said.

He obviously forgot the Wall Street Journal, which could hardly be described as sexually stimulating. He was responding to questions about whether organisations like museums, funded by British taxpayers, should throw open their entire collections to the world community.

The Science Museum, for example, was turned into a quango by the last Tory government but New Labour has pledged to give free access to such institutions. That poses questions about how such expensive museums will be funded, particularly if they design extensive sites full of rich content. T

he Science Museum, for example, received a large sum of money from the UK National Lottery, but is still £2 million short of the £47 million cost, despite Intel's donation. ®