Readers, please allow us a shameless but well-deserved plug. Rafat Ali, founder of PaidContent.org, has provided a great report on where the money is flowing from venture capital firms into new content-oriented investments. For $100 you get a nice compendium of Rafat's weblog entries specific to VC moves in the content space and companies financed by VCs, along with a handy table outlining over fifty deals in the media and B2B arenas for content and related technologies, including deal numbers, backers, sector focus and key elements of their business models. The content industry and venture capital are oftentimes at arm's length with one another - "content equals death" was a mantra I heard from one VC in the dot-com days - but it's encouraging to see first and second round financing going in not only to the usual big media-oriented tech moves but as well to some companies that are at the heart of vContent. It's difficult for many investors to focus on vContent as an investment opportunity when the legacy of big software and systems sales still drives the thinking of so many investors, but at the end of the day it's content that people are purchasing and creating, not widgets. The message is beginning to sink in, but it will take more reports like Rafat's and better industry metrics on content-oriented investment performance to convince people that this is a space worthy of new investments - not to mention the best research and advisory services from you-know-who...;-)