Kara Swisher is
reporting that the
Guardian Media Group is going to buy the popular
paidContent blog published by Rafat Ali for over $30 million.
In what will be seen as a new media coup, sources tell BoomTown that Britain's Guardian Media Group is set to announce this morning that it will buy the company that runs the high-profile digital media news site paidContent for a price "north of $30 million."
That price, though, includes an earn-out, sources said, which will depend on future performance of the company.
The paidContent site is owned by ContentNext and was founded by Publisher and Editor Rafat Ali in 2002.
With the motto, "The Economics of Content," paidContent has been a pioneer in the online news space, doing high-quality reporting about online media and digital efforts by big media companies.
paidContent consists of four blogs - all listed
here in a post by VentureBeat. No one seems to have traffic specifics but paidContent was one of the most widely read blogs covering digital media. You can more about the deal at
GigaOm,
ReadWriteWeb and
TechMeme. The official press release can be found
here on paidContent.
The Guardian also has the story
here.
