Money changes everything. Rafat Ali, the founder of PaidContent, ought to be relaxing on the beach after selling his blog business to the Guardian last year. Instead, he's working harder than ever. And getting divorced.

Is blogging the future of the media business? If so, it's in a very small way. That's what I gather from the purchase by Guardian Media Group, a British ink-on-dead-trees concern, of PaidContent.org for $30 million or so. It's a satisfying outcome for Rafat Ali, PaidContent's founder; he now has bragging rights to a bigger blog deal than the sale of Weblogs Inc. to AOL for $25 million by Jason Calacanis, his former boss.

It takes a brave man to get in the middle of TechCrunch's bloggin' VC Michael Arrington and PaidContent founding editor Rafat Ali as they duke it out over the future of their micromedia empires. Timesman Saul Hansell is nothing but brave. In a Bits blog post, he quotes Rafat Ali's new hired hand Nathan Richardson saying that PaidContent differentiates itself from TechCrunch, Silicon Alley Insider and our own Valleywag because it "has not gone down the road of following personal foibles." Then, towards the end of the piece, Ali himself suggeests that Arrington is thinking too small by gunning for CNET:

Confirming early reports, Rafat Ali posted the details of ContentNext Media's new hires, including the promotion of employee number two Staci D. Kramer (pictured, right) to co-editor and EVP and plans to lease space in downtown Manhattan, expanding the company's geographic footprint to the other coast from its current space in Santa Monica. Patrick Dignan (pictured, left) from Forbes will join new CEO Nathan Richardson in New York, and Charlie Koones (pictured, center), former president and publisher of entertainment trade Variety joins the board. Seems more and more execs are buying into Ali's belief that "in the near future, all media will be digital media."

ContentNext Media, the parent company of blogtrepreneur Rafat Ali's media news site PaidContent.org has named former Dow Jones executive Nathan Richardson as the company's new CEO. He's pictured here in his days as general manager of Yahoo Finance. Most recently, Richardson has been doing volunteer work in Liberia for the International Rescue Committee. The move will free Ali from his role as CEO to focus on editorial duties. Look for the company to announce another senior-level hire by early next week. The move makes it clear that company is focused on continuing to grow independently — and Ali certainly won't be selling it to TechCrunch investor-slash-journalist Michael Arrington anytime soon. Update: More on the company's as-yet-unannounced moves after the jump.