http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/02/aol-buy-huffington-post-315-million/
The Huffington Post was sold to AOL today.
I did not even know AOL was still around let alone sitting on 315 million bucks.
Does that mean we have to go back to dial up to get it? How do you download Netscape?
Huffington is supposed to stay on as editor and help lead the content. But the site was built to have a response to Drudge. I doubt it wiil be able to keep its viewpoint in tact.
I was gonna say they way over-paid, but maybe not. 315 million is like 10x revenue, and their revenue stream seems to be increasing pretty quickly, even before the buy-out. And they’re the highest ranked site of their type on Alexa by a considerable margin. The only news-type sites that outrank them are the ones that are parts of larger traditional media, like BBC.com and CNN.com.
I don’t really like the place (too much new-agey stuff, and a lot of the editorials are too over-blown), but apparently its working as a business model.
I doubt AOL will rock the boat, as the current editorial stance seems to be pretty successful as far as growing the business.
Hopefully you are joking here. If not, I’d say that your method of accessing the site won’t change at all. You shouldn’t need to be part of AOL to access Huffington Post…it will still be a web site just like it is now. It will just be owned by AOL.
-XT
AOL has money? AOL can buy stuff? I thought AOL was moldering up on Reboot Hill, along with Pets.com.
Of course I was joking. But AOL is not considered leading edge in anything. Most consider them kind on dinosaurish.
Huffpo was a kind of counter to Drudge. Now it will change. I doubt it will stay slightly left.
I thought you were but just checking. 
Why would they change it? The whole point in buying it was to enjoy the revenue stream it generates, as well as have it’s capabilities under the mother companies flag (plus, perhaps, have some of it’s rep rub off on AOL, to polish their image). You don’t buy a company like that and then fundamentally change it…not if you want to keep it’s base support. If they changed it’s content or political leaning they would lose the very factors that generate revenue for it.
-XT
I wonder how AOL will be able to afford those giant, bright fonts announcing every. single. little. thing.
I assume the corporate nature of things will take over and HP will go a bit more mainstream and not pounce on right-wing shenanigans and gaffes.
I also assume I’ll be seeing my HuffPost CD-ROM in the mail shortly.
I’m not seeing a debate, here. I tossed a coin with MPSIMS and IMHO on it and it landed IMHO side up.
Off you go.
[ /Modding ]
I was reading up on AOL recently just out of nostalgia, and I read that they were pursuing a new strategy that they were confident would make them relevant again. For better or worse, this must be part of that strategy.
How does it fit into opinion when none is expressed?
The same way a thread can land in debate with no debate in it. Unless the debate was “will we have to go back to dialup to view the HP?”
I like the part that read:
So they’re paying 315 MILLION dollars and 95% of the sale will be in cash.
That’s a lot of money sitting around. I wish I had 300 million. In fact I’d settle for 300 million pennies. I’d settle for 300 pennies. I’d settle for a bunch of those shiny AOL CD discs. 
AOL has actually been pursuing this “new strategy” for over a decade now.
** They purchased Moviefone (and its associated content websites) in 1999.
** They bought Mapquest in 2000.
** They acquired the Weblogs network (which includes Engadget, Joystiq and a few other big blogs) in 2005.
** They also launched TMZ in 2005.
** They bought the TechCrunch blog and Patch.com (a fancier Craigslist) last year.
Someone needs to edumcamate me here a little.
I must be honest with you, I follow MSNBC and listen to conservative talk radio when I can, and my impression of Arianna Huffington was she was this quirky liberal blogger with funny accent. I was frankly floored her website was worth this much, and shes such a power broker that she has risen to handling a huge amount of content of AOL??? What am I missing here?
It was a surprise to me too, but The Huffington Post is apparently one of the most popular sites on the planet.
How will this affect the quantity and quality of HuffPoWoo?
I actually agree with gonzo; I think the AOL version of HuffPo will move toward some sort of centrist balance.
Huffington herself is a careful student of political trends, and how they can be used to advance her personal brand. She rode insider conservatism as far as it would take her, then when her rich husband’s career flamed out (as it were), she split with him and built herself a new gig on the left, when antiwar activism was running high. Now with Bush out of power and the Obama administration a bit pummeled from the 2010 election, she decides that activism on the left has peaked, and bipartisanship is what everyone’s talking about now. So she envisions herself as a centrist editor and statesman, leading a media property that addresses all of America, not just one side or another. AOL provides the money and the platform to do so. Essentially, I could see her remaking HuffPo into something that would editorially be more like Time magazine.
And we all know how well AOL and Time magazine worked together. 
It’s now called Seamonkey.
What I think is odd is that Ariana Huffington herself will be put in charge of a division that includes such items as Huffington Post, TechCrunch, and MapQuest.
I understand the news and blog sites. That’s familiar territory to her. But MapQuest? What does she know about maps or map services?