Journalism Online LLC, the company set on selling its e-commerce engine to newspapers to enable them to more easily charge for online content, announced on Thursday that more than 500 newspapers and magazines have signalled their intent to join the venture, AFP reported Thursday.

Formed in April by three industry executives from differing backgrounds, the company said it has received letters of intent to join the group, from a publisher representing 176 dailies, 330 non-dailies and "leading global news sites."

"The Web sites of these publishers have more than 90 million monthly visitors from around the world," the New York-based company said in a statement.

The company hopes to open the payment platform by the fall. The platform will help the newspapers implement content payment systems through which publications may offer content at self-determined prices. Consumers, meanwhile, will be allowed to create a single account, usable across all newspapers using Journalism Online. The company will provide subscription systems, will market the subscription and will license the content to intermediaries such as search engines.

"Affiliates will select their own approach to offering paid access, based on their respective brands, content and online readership," according to the statement.

"Somebody could subscribe to one publication, others might want to get a package of content," co-founder Gordon Crovitz, a former publisher of The Wall Street Journal, told AFP. "Some access will continue to be free and the most engaged users will be required to pay."

Crovitz revealed the company has received interest from newspapers in the Americas and Europe, but the publishers' names have not yet been revealed.

Journalism Online hopes for an initial revenue of $50-100 per subscriber from the most involved 10 percent of online users.