Rafat Ali

Eye to Eye

Can Yahoo Turn Itself Around?

Beth Callaghan in Eye to Eye on April 25 at 2:48 pm PT

Mark Cuban and Eric Jackson answer the question: What is the one major thing you think Yahoo needs to do to turn itself around?

GigaOM Buys paidContent (Like Peter Kafka Said)

Kara Swisher in Media on February 8 at 11:19 am PT

Guess what? Wait, we knew that.

Is GigaOM Buying paidContent?

Peter Kafka in Media on February 6 at 3:39 am PT

Om Malik won’t say. But we should find out soon.

Three Years Later, the Guardian Wants a Buyer for PaidContent

Peter Kafka in Media on November 21, 2011 at 12:30 pm PT

The British newspaper publisher says the pioneering Web site is “is a high-quality asset but our focus in the US is on building the Guardian.”

Viral Audio: While Arrington Fiddles and Bartz Erupts, My Cup o’ Crazy Runneth Over

Kara Swisher in News on September 9, 2011 at 10:49 am PT

Do I have something to say about the clown circuses going on at both Yahoo and AOL this week? You bet I do.

For Sale: Inside.com, Barely Used

Peter Kafka in Media on November 4, 2010 at 11:52 am PT

Psst. Wanna buy a cool Web address? Guardian Media has one for sale. The British publisher is peddling the “Inside.com” domain name, people familiar with the company tell me. Asking price, I’m told, is something north of $100,000.

Exclusive: PaidContent Founder Ali to Depart Pioneering Digital News Site

Peter Kafka in Media on May 21, 2010 at 8:37 am PT

PaidContent’s Rafat Ali, who turned a one-man Web site into a must-read hub for digital media news, is leaving the company he founded eight years ago. Sources said Ali has told co-workers he will leave the company in early July, which will be two years after he sold ContentNext, PaidContent’s parent company, to the London-based Guardian Media group. He didn’t tell staff what he intends to do next.

The Guardian's Changing Media Summit in London: No Answers There Either!

Kara Swisher in News on March 26, 2009 at 2:33 pm PT

On BoomTown’s recent grand tour of Europe, I paid a visit a week ago to London to moderate some sessions at Media Guardian’s Changing Media Summit 2009. As in the U.S., a lot of the same questions were asked there about when and how the new media business would cross the Rubicon to transform into a strongly profitable and sustainable business. And the answer to that query was just as hard to find as here.

Found: A Publishing Optimist!

Peter Kafka in Media on October 28, 2008 at 5:00 pm PT

What does Condé Nast publisher David Carey know that everyone else doesn’t? And who are these bullish advertising clients he’s talking to? Live from paidContent’s “Future of Business Media” conference, it’s … hope?

PaidContent's Rafat Ali Speaks! So, Here's Who's Next…

Kara Swisher in News on July 11, 2008 at 7:41 pm PT

Earlier today, BoomTown broke the stunning-for-blogs news that ContentNext, owner of the popular online digital media news site paidContent, was being bought by the Guardian Media Group for about $30 million in an earn-out acquisition. But the deal–which comes after the mid-May sale of Ars Technica to Condé Nast for a reported $25 million–begs the question of which tech blog might be next to be acquired. And, after much noisy poking around today, BoomTown is giving the nod to one of the sector’s larger and splashier sites: TechCrunch.