paidContent was an online media hub that covered news, information and analysis of the business of digital media. It was founded in 2002 by journalist Rafat Ali to "chronicle the economic evolution of digital content that is shaping the future of the media, information and entertainment industries".[1]

paidContent
Type of site
News website
Available inEnglish
OwnerGigaOM
URLpaidcontent.org
CommercialYes
Launched2002; 22 years ago (2002)
Current statusDefunct

History edit

Funded by Alan Patricof's Greycroft Partners in 2006, Rafat Ali's umbrella company, ContentNext, formerly had offices in Santa Monica, California and New York. ContentNext operated paidContent.org, paidContent.org:UK, mocoNews.net, which covered the business of mobile content, and contentSutra.com, which covered India's digital media markets.[2]

In 2008, ContentNext was purchased by Guardian Media Group for a reported $30 million.[3] It became a member of the Guardian Professional Group, though founder/editor Ali and CEO Nathan Richardson, formerly of Yahoo! Finance,[4] continued to run the media website as an independent business.[5]

On February 8, 2012, paidContent was acquired by GigaOM through the acquisition of ContentNext Media.[6] On November 12, 2013, paidContent was merged into GigaOM.[7]

References edit

  1. ^ "About". paidContent. Archived from the original on June 20, 2009. Retrieved February 15, 2012.
  2. ^ Kiss, Jemima (July 11, 2008). "Guardian News & Media buys PaidContent publisher". The Guardian. Retrieved February 15, 2012.
  3. ^ Kiss, Jemima (July 11, 2008). "Rafat Ali: from blogs to riches". The Guardian. Archived from the original on April 17, 2015. Retrieved February 15, 2012.
  4. ^ Smillie, Dirk (February 3, 2009). "Nathan Richardson's Modest Proposal". Forbes. Archived from the original on August 19, 2017. Retrieved March 13, 2009.
  5. ^ Kaplan, David (February 4, 2009). "paidContent.org - NYT's Keller: We're Looking For Ways To Charge For Online Content Again". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on November 7, 2012. Retrieved February 15, 2012.
  6. ^ Rusli, Evelyn M. (February 8, 2012). "GigaOM Acquires paidContent". DealBook. Archived from the original on March 28, 2013. Retrieved February 26, 2013.
  7. ^ Krazit, Tom (November 12, 2013). "Why we are moving our media coverage over to Gigaom". paidContent. Archived from the original on November 22, 2013. Retrieved November 30, 2013.

External links edit