Guardian Media acquires paidContent.org publisher

11/07/2008 16:34

LONDON (Reuters) - Privately owned Guardian News & Media has acquired ContentNext, the publisher of influential blog paidContent.org, a further sign of the growing importance of such sites to traditional media companies.

The group, which publishes the Guardian and Observer newspapers and the Guardian America website, among others, said ContentNext’s founder and editor Rafat Ali and Chief Executive Nathan Richardson would continue to run the company as a stand-alone business.

A source familiar with the situation told Reuters the Guardian had paid around $30 million (15 million pounds).

ContentNext, which is based in Santa Monica and New York City, delivers news and analysis to executives in the media, entertainment and technology sectors. It was founded in 2002.

It owns paidContent.org, which covers digital content, mocoNews.net, which covers mobile content, paidContent:UK, which focuses on the UK and Europe, and contentSutra.com, which covers India’s digital content market.

"We have long been admirers of Rafat and the business he has built, which is an indispensable resource for so many senior people in our industry," Tim Brooks, managing director of Guardian News & Media, said in a statement.

PaidContent is one of a generation of Web logs, or blogs, which have transcended their initial reputation .....continued below

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as being unreliable purveyors of rumours and distributors of traditional media reports.

(Reporting by Kate Holton and Robert MacMillan in New York, editing by Will Waterman)

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