It’s getting kind of lonely out here as an independent blogging startup. In May Ars Technica was picked up by Wired. Today Kara Swisher and Marshall Kirkpatrick report that blog network Paid Content’s parent company ContentNext Media is being acquired by The Guardian Group for $30 million or more, including earnout.
Paid Content is led by CEO Nathan Richardson, and was founded in 2002 by former journalist Rafat Ali. The company operates a number of blogs and holds regular events.
I do not think TechCruch provides enough unique content to be considered target for acquisition.
Your offensive and derogatory tone to review some start-ups in past is largely responsible for lack of good spongers and offers.
Jason
Actively solliciting an acquisition, Michael?
Blogs are the next big thing! Oh wait, people were saying that in 2004 already.
Aw…TechCrunch is lonely.
Isn’t PaidContent a bit more hard economics though?
Moconews.net – pah! I know what Moco means in the tech biz, but where I’m from, it means Mucous.
Your offensive and derogatory tone to review some start-ups in past is largely responsible for my repeat reading
Rafat, Congratulations. You deserved it! Remember my prediction at the IIC mixer?
Take care…
I fail to see what is lonely about making a living doing what you love to do… Micheal, you have developed a wonderful network but unlike many other companies, you are also incredibly profitable. You got it made!
Jon
http://woodmarvels.com – Create Unique Memories
Mr. Arrington, you have always appeared to be having WAY too much fun with this self-created platform than to even consider allowing yourself to be bought and work for The Man. As long as you’re able to support yourself, keep rollin’ the way you are.
Aren’t these sites tiny when it comes to traffic? Must have some good revenues from their events…
Hey Mike ! You better remain alone….Coz entities after getting acquired loose out the sense of independence they enjoy being alone…
And TC network of blogs already fetches you millions then why worry…huh…
Congratulations.. impressive content syndication marketplace!
I think Techcrunch should remain independent because it is not cool living in a news world were most of the news are dictated.
Paid Content was good but not so acid in their news. I like your articles and I think that you should not sell, not yet.
Go TC!
TS is best
ahh, should be TC of course
Not really sure why this company has such value, much less to be acquired for $30Mil but I guess stranger things have happened in the business world. Anybody feel the web2.0 bubble is on the verge of busting ?
PaidContent’s reporting and content is vastly superior to TC.
TC’s community is vastly more active than PaidContent’s
It is really, really hard to sell a community of users.
Michael, are you thinking of selling 2 or can you handle the loneliness?
Congrats to Rafat and his team. I remember when we he was first starting out and really was the only place to read mobile content news.
Even as Techcrunch and others started getting into mobile, I applaud his ability to bring in top quality journalists like Tricia Duryee and Matt Kapko etc and own certain stories such as the downfall of Amp’d and others.
Nice job Rafat:)
-vijay
Speculation time.
I guess this puts TechCrunch’s value somewhere in the $150-200 million range. The TechCrunch network dominates ContentNext in traffic. Probably about 5 to 8 times more.
congrats to Rafat, Nathan, Alan and the whole crew!
First off, congrats to Rafat and his team. PC was the first tech industry blog I read regularly and I hope the tone and insight remain the same given the new ownership structure.
And @ 16, I think you’re right on the money about TC’s audience providing a hefty does of TC’s overall value, but since when is selling a community of users really, really hard? Especially in the tech vertical where the perceived value of the users is much higher than, say, a community of dog walkers (nothing against them, of course), I’d think that other tech blogs (TC and Mashable come to mind) are well positioned.
Where on earth a $30 million valuation came from would be nice to know, though…seems pretty hefty.
Congratulations to Rafat. Paidcontent is a great site. It is unbiased, provides accurate information and is very current.
@19, you are ridiculous. Traffic and even revenue does not decide a company’s value. If the company making the acquisition thinks they can make money off of a given product/property, that will always carry more weight. And clearly Paidcontent adds value, and Gaurdian believes they will produce profits with them in their portfolio.
@21 Pedro
Selling communities is hard because the seller can’t guarantee they’ll stay. It’s somewhat easier if you’ve got all their photos or videos. But TC can’t warranty to a buyer that we’ll all still be commenting.
There was a time when F*ckedCompany had a huge and active community of contributors. TC reminds me a lot of FC back in 2000.
@andreaitis – its personal. Michael “Ego” Arrington has issues paidContent and Rafat, so he took a dig at Rafat with this whole former journalist comment. what a cheapshot.
“Former Journalist”- Arrington, Rafat is a journalist – and the reason he got a great exit.
Most of the people commenting seem to have forgotten – your open memo trying to band together other bloggers – a commentary in which you laid out untrue statements about PaidContent and Rafat gave you a nice verbal spanking. Your statement about Rafat makes it quite clear – your are jealous Rafat was successful with his efforts.
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