Publisher Time Inc. accepting Bitcoin payments

Posted On 16 Dec 2014

Tag: Bitcoin payments, Brian Armstrong, Coinbase, Lynne Biggar, Time Inc.

Time Inc. announced this morning it has become the first major magazine publisher to accept payments in Bitcoin, following a partnership with Coinbase. The media company said the initiative launched today with its titles Fortune, Health, This Old House, and Travel + Leisure now accepting the digital currency among the various payment options for subscriptions.

“We are always looking for ways to make it easier for consumers to engage with our brands and this pilot program will give bitcoin users a seamless and simple way to purchase subscriptions,” said Lynne Biggar, Time Inc.’s executive vice president of Consumer Marketing + Revenue, in a press release. “We hope to expand our partnership with Coinbase in the coming months to create more opportunities to provide greater value to our customers.”

“For a major publisher like Time Inc. to embrace bitcoin sends an important message to both its readers and to the broader media community,” said Coinbase co-founder and CEO Brian Armstrong in the release. “In addition to providing consumers with an easy, convenient way to pay for their subscriptions, it also opens the door for Time Inc. and publishers like it to familiarize themselves with the Bitcoin technology and explore new applications across the industry.”

Noting on its official blog that Time Inc. reaches more than 130 million consumers monthly across multiple platforms, Coinbase said that “with this integration, we’re helping the company further engage and expand its audience by providing consumers with a convenient, secure and fast payment method for subscriptions.”

Coinbase said it believes “this is an important step in helping the publishing industry understand and explore new business models that can be enabled with bitcoin.” The company gives the example of micropayments, which “provide an incredible opportunity for content creators and media companies, allowing consumers to make small payments for content in an open network for the first time.”

Image courtesy of Coinbase

About the Author

Katherine Fletcher is a writer and editor based in London, Ontario, Canada. With a graduate degree in journalism, Katherine spent more than five years curating news on Canadian higher education for a marketing consultancy. Her interest in reporting on Bitcoin stems from her belief that digital currency is, and will continue to be, a disruptor in how we conceive modern currency.