Guardian News & Media has acquired ContentNext, publisher of media and technology business blog paidContent.org, a sign of the growing importance of such sites to traditional media companies, says a Reuters report.
ContentNext's founder and editor, Rafat Ali, and Chief Executive Nathan Richardson would continue to run the company as a standalone business, said the privately held Guardian, which publishes the Guardian and Observer newspapers in Britain and the Guardian America website. The Guardian paid about $30 million, a source familiar with the situation told Reuters.
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.
