The paidContent experiment is over

It’s the end of the line for the site that helped define the discussion around online publishing for years. paidContent is dead:

But in a recent survey of paidContent readers, over 75 percent of them told us that they wanted to see more coverage of emerging technology. That’s a natural fit with everything Gigaom stands for, and we therefore decided that honoring the same paidContent commitment to quality under the Gigaom umbrella was the best way to explore the future of emerging media startups, business models, and technologies for our media industry readers.

Tom Krazit clarifies the thinking in a comment:

I meant more coverage of emerging technology in the media world: social media, startups, new publishing platforms like Medium, ereaders and web video devices.

It had been obvious for a while – since Robert Andrews left, perhaps, that paidContent was moving in a different, more analytical direction. Those cores media staff in the new media channel are a really insightful bunch of writers, but I’m still sad to see such an influential site pass away.