Why PaidContent.org has been successful

Mark Glaser writes on his MediaShift blog about why Rafat Ali and his PaidContent.org Web site have been so successful in covering the tech and media worlds.

Ali sold his operation last week for an estimated $30 million.

Glaser writes, “I think PaidContent has been a pioneer in the field of online media and has been a case study in how one person can build a sustainable niche site. Here is how he did it:

Reporting around the clock.

Ali often worked late into the night and around the clock to beat mainstream business publications that were wedded to print or broadcast and held stories longer.

Knowing when to bring in reporters.

As Ali’s workload increased and the audience got bigger, he was smart enough to hire experienced journalists such as Staci Kramer, David Kaplan and Robert Andrews. Rather than treat the site as a blog where opinion comes first (a la TechCrunch), PaidContent stuck to its newsy angle of breaking news and getting interviews and quotes.”

Read more here.