Following the news in this morning's Wall Street Journal (and in the Morning Buzz), Rafat Ali makes announcements about his deal for financing at paidContent.org. The site based here covers "the economics of content" on the web.

The biggest step till now was me deciding to go full time with the blog, back in early 2003. This tops that....

ContentNext Media, the parent company of our three sites – paidContent.org, MocoNews.net and ContentSutra — has received its first round of investment from Alan Patricof’s new venture firm Greycroft Partners. The amount is not being disclosed.
ContentNext also recently brought on former Details magazine president and publisher Jeff Stern as a director and COO.

Alan, as most of you know, has helped define the venture-capital industry in the U.S., having helped provide early stage financing for companies such as Apple, AOL, New York Magazine, Audible, Cellular Communications, NTL, Office Depot, Harman Intl. and more recently Zinio, Handmark and The Newsmarket....

We’ll be hiring a journalist in NYC, starting our UK vertical, launching a redesign of all our sites, hiring more staff for operations and sales, bringing on interns, planning more industry mixers and developing conferences, starting our research arm, and more.

Rafat is the former managing editor at the Silicon Alley Reporter and media reporter for Inside.com. His team includes former Online Journalism Review columnist Staci Kramer.