There is no doubt about it: the way businesses operate is evolving rapidly. If you had of mentioned ‘twitter' or ‘facebook' ten years ago you would have been given strange looks and a wide berth. Buy many companies now view these mediums as vital to getting their message out to consumers quickly, and, crucially, for free.

Will King, the founder of King of Shaves, is one entrepreneur that understands the importance of social media to businesses.

"Twitter is free and people deride it and say why bother but the reality is that you get followers out there and friends of your brand," he says. "You can communicate with them and they communicate with their friends: that is a very powerful brand message tool as it involves consumers talking to consumers about your product."

The point is that business is evolving - and firms must change with it or be left behind. The Times announced this week that they will start charging its readers for use of its website. Users will be offered a day's use for £1, or £2 for a week's subscription.

Whether this is a good business move or not is open to debate and will ultimately rest on whether they get the number of subscribers and thus visitors to the site to still be able to charge the same advertising rates as they do currently.

With research showing that newspaper buyers have a strong loyalty but readers of websites less so, it is certainly a gamble. However, it clearly highlights that The Times is aware of the need to change its business model to adapt to the current marketplace.