[Editor’s Note: This post is part of SiliconANGLE’s “Predictions and Reflections” series. To view this year’s collection, click here. To participate, create an account or log into “TheANGLE” and request to join the group. –mrh / spa]

Everyone is waiting to see what Rupert Murdoch will do. Will he remove the content from his news organization’s from Google’s search engine? There are arguments for this move and against it. Some have even deemed the man senile. Is he cutting off his nose to spite his face? Maybe, maybe not.

You may think he’s a curmudgeon with old school ideas, living in the days of old and you could be right. But what if you’re wrong? What if this move is what everyone else needs to happen to get the courage to do the same and ultimately get paid for their content? Let me say this: If Murdoch has even the tiniest bit of success with this, no matter how far-fetched and non-webby it may seem, the move will be a real game-changer. I know I’m watching with baited breath.

I get the benefit of free. I know that we expect news and information to be free online because it has been for the most part. But there are people doing well with paid. Very well. Even some news organizations. Think about MarketingProfs (or even GigaOM) for a minute. Much of their content is considered "premium." People find value there and they pay for it. That’s the way it works over there. You can love it or leave it.

Heck, I was included in ReadWriteWeb’s Guide to Community Management for which they charge $300. They even include my blog in an aggregated RSS feed of community manager blogs that they make available to people who *paid* for that document. I don’t make any money off of those sales, not even as an affiliate because I was not offered that option. (That’s another story but I am using it here to make a point that I have contributed to something that people find valuable enough to pay for, but I am not getting paid.)

I have not read Chris Anderson’s new book "Free" but I have read some reviews and I pretty much know the premise. It is definitely on my reading list for 2010. But as someone who produces online content quite regularly and that many people find valuable, I too am looking to monetize in 2010.

When I write an article for a print publication, I get paid, and I have decided that I want to be paid for some of the premium content I produce. Not everything, but some. And if I am asking for money, I am going to deliver the goods. 

It’s just time. I have an idea of how I’m going to do it and I’ve been working on a new project that I plan to launch mid-January that I believe fills a void in the community management space. It will not be free. Some of it will, but some of it won’t. I may not make much money. But on the flip side, I just might. People can love it or leave it.

When I check my email subscription list in Feedburner, I can see that there are some big wigs at big companies reading my blog, Online Community Strategist. I get emails from people indicating that they shared my content with clients or that I helped them grow their community for their employer or land a new job as a community manager. Those emails make me feel good.

I know that doesn’t make me special and I know that I am no rock star, but I do know that I owe it to myself to take it to another level. I can help even more with premium content that fills a void and gives people something they don’t necessarily get elsewhere in terms of being in the trenches in a position that is still very new and evolving heavily. Paid may not be the new free, but paid is a new choice for that I am making next year and we’ll just see where it goes.