The chairman of online media company InterActiveCorp (IAC) has predicted that the model for monetising online content will soon change in a big way.

Speaking at the Advertising 2.0 conference in New York earlier this week, Barry Diller claimed that many publications will eventually begin charging for access to online content - even though this is likely to result in a decline in web visitors, Econsultancy reports.

"It will happen. It is absolutely inevitable. There's no way around it," he stated, adding that it is likely some consumers will pay up while others will be more reluctant to do so.

The comments echo those of News Corporation boss Rupert Murdoch, who said last month that he expected his company's newspapers - including those in the UK - to start imposing fees on website visitors for access to news articles within the next year following the success of such a model for the Wall Street Journal.

Mr Diller told Advertising 2.0 that he also expected the nature of online advertising and website promotion to change as standard display ads continue to fall out of favour.

"We may want institutional, we may want traffic, we may want transactions ... the whole range for action versus impressions is only possible in internet form," he remarked.

IAC's web properties include Ask.com, Excite, Bloglines, Urbanspoon, Vimeo and Dictionary.com.