Britain's Guardian Media Group has purchased ContentNext for "north of $30 million."
ContentNext's most well-known property is paidContent, an online news site. Its other offerings include MocoNews, ContentSutra and paidContent UK.
The $30 million payout is performance-based and will depend on the long-term success of the acquisition, reports All Things Digital. It nonetheless represents the most expensive blog-related acquisition so far, rivaling AOL's acquisition of Weblogs Inc. for $25-$30 million in 2006, The Inquisitr points out.
paidContent publisher and editor Rafat Ali covered the acquisition in more detail. Ali, who helped launch paidContent in 2002, dubbed this period "ContentNext 2.0" — a kind of journalistic ascension for the company.
The new parent will "help us scale, add to our existing portfolio of products, and most importantly, help keep 'Our Essence of Being' intact," Ali wrote.
Guardian Media Group publishes print and online news, including titles like The Guardian, The Observer and the Manchester Evening News. It is owned by Scott Trust.
