The team at Facebook may have found a new source of revenue thanks to paid messages. Facebook on Thursday announced a new beta program which allows users to send messages to non-Facebook friends. There’s just one catch, users will have to pay per message. Facebook is testing a $1 fee but that price could skyrocket if the program is a success.

In justifying its decision a Facebook rep writes:

“Today we’re starting a small experiment to test the usefulness of economic signals to determine relevance. This test will give a small number of people the option to pay to have a message routed to the Inbox rather than the Other folder of a recipient that they are not connected with. [Read more…]