ContentNext, PaidContent.org Publisher, Acquired by Guardian Media Group
The acquisition, slated to be announced today was reported early this morning by Kara Swisher at AllThingsD. ReadWriteWeb, in post also early this morning, reported confirmation of the story based on a Twitter conversation between the Guardian’s Technology Editor Charles Arthur and travel writer Craig McGinty.
The move so far has been received very positively by new media content providers. Although, given the reported $30 million price tag, it’s easy to understand why.
With the acquisition of Ars Technica by Wired, Guardian Media Group’s acquisition of ContentNext and the New York Times’ apparent offer to buy CenterNetworks (via Twitter), there looks to be a trend developing in which the big blogs are being gobbled up by “old media.”
MEDIAdeluge here:
- VentureBeat, Guardian buys pathbreaking blog network ContentNext for rumored $30M
- GigaOM, Why Guardian Media Bought paidContent for $30M
- paidContent.org, Guardian News & Media to buy ContentNext Media
- mathewingram.com/work, Guardian buys PaidContent = Smart
- The Inquisitr, PaidContent acquired for $30 million
- CenterNetworks, PaidContent Acquired By Guardian Media Group
- BuzzMachine, Paid Content, indeed
- Mashable, Guardian Acquires paidContent for $30+ Million
- Techmeme has more here
For those who follow social media closely, this emerging trend really comes as no surprise. The savvy media people have been treating the big blogs like the highly influential media they are.
As the old ways of consuming content (read: print/newspapers) continue to wane, it is natural that they would refocus their distribution online. What seems to be slowly happening is media content providers are finally realizing what business they are in. As the writing on the wall gets harder and harder to ignore, we will see a huge uptick in media consolidation between traditional “old media” and new media. More specifically, when newspapers and magazines realize they are in the content business, radio realizes they’re in the audio business and TV realizes they’re in the video business; the acquisitions we’re seeing today will be small potatoes.
The better question is who will consume whom. Will old media get it soon enough to buy thier way out of their current perdicament or will they wait to long? It is conceivable that emerging new media companies like TechCrunch, for example, could buy “old media” outlets in a play for writing talent.
