Guardian buys pathbreaking blog network ContentNext for rumored $30M
Guardian News & Media, a private UK publisher, has acquired ContentNext, the publisher of PaidContent.org, the news site launched by Rafat Ali in 2002 that was an early example of a lone blogging effort that turned into a larger media company.
Ali told Reuters that ContentNext would continue to be run as a stand-alone business. Reports, based on an anonymous source, suggest the Guardian paid around $30 million.
[Update: Kara Swisher, of AllThingsD, follows up with a piece about what other blog networks might be bought, including a look at TechCrunch, and citing me, among others. She adds that the $30M for ContentNext includes an earn-out agreement.]
ContentNext, headquartered in Santa Monica and New York, started with news, but expanded into conferences and research reports after taking at least $1 million in venture capital from Alan Patricof’s Greycroft Partners in 2006. It targeted readers in the media, entertainment and technology sectors.
ContentNext owns four properties. The flagship PaidContent covers digital content. MocoNews.net covers the mobile industry. PaidContent:UK covers the UK tech industry, and ContentSutra.com covered India’s digital media industry.
This has been a long road of very hard work for Ali and his team, and this is undoubtedly great news for him. Congrats Rafat!
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About the Author, Matt Marshall
Matt launched VentureBeat in September of 2006, with the realization that no one else was covering the entrepreneurial and tech innovation scene with the velocity or depth that he was. Prior to founding VentureBeat, he covered venture capital for the San Jose Mercury News from 2001 to 2006. In 2002, Matt was awarded "Journalist of the Year" by the Northern California Society of Professional Journalists. Prior to working at the Merc, he was a correspondent for the Wall Street Journal in Bonn, Germany from 1995 to 1998, and a writer for the Washington Post in 1994. Matt holds a PhD in Government and an MA in German and European Studies from Georgetown University. In addition to VentureBeat, Matt is also the Executive Producer of DEMO, the leading launchpad event for emerging technologies.
