Hooray! We’re moving closer to a planned experiment that will tell us if — and how much — people are prepared to pay for online content. The Guardian report says:

The Sunday Times is set to launch a standalone website – and is considering charging readers for its content.

Plans have not been finalised, but executives at Sunday Times publisher News International are considering the charges to fall in line with the publicly stated desire of Rupert Murdoch, the chairman and chief executive of parent company News Corporation, for his newspapers around the world to follow the lead of the Wall Street Journal by charging for content.

Sunday Times content is currently published online alongside its daily sister title the Times under the umbrella Times Online website brand.

One source familiar with the situation said the new Sunday Times website could launch within three months. Another said it would be later in the year and that many crucial decisions about the site had not been finalised.

MediaGuardian.co.uk understands that a final decision on how to charge readers to look at content – whether via subscriptions or micropayments – has not been made…