It was founded in 2002 by journalist Rafat Ali to "chronicle the economic evolution of digital content that is shaping the future of the media, information and entertainment industries".
[1] Funded by Alan Patricof's Greycroft Partners in 2006, Rafat Ali's umbrella company, ContentNext, formerly had offices in Santa Monica, California and New York.
[3] It became a member of the Guardian Professional Group, though founder/editor Ali and CEO Nathan Richardson, formerly of Yahoo!
Finance,[4] continued to run the media website as an independent business.
[5] On February 8, 2012, paidContent was acquired by GigaOM through the acquisition of ContentNext Media.