Ariana Huffington has parlayed a media site built on her personality into a $315 million deal with AOL. AOL, which has struggled to adapt to the Internet since it was created, hopes the Huffington Post will facilitate a return to solvency. In a move analysts said may boost AOL’s tarnished image, Huffington will oversee the entire lineup of AOL news outlets. It makes you question if AOL had to take out a personel loan to pay that price tag.
Huffington accepting is in the plan for AOL
A deal with the Huffington Post/AOL might be an intelligent move. It might revive AOL. There has been a lot of success for the Huffington Post. Google and Facebook have been overshadowing AOL though. As the AOL dial-up customer base either dies off or realizes that AOL is no longer necessary, the business has scrambled to reverse a ten-year slide. Revenue went down from ads 29 percent from 2009 to 2010 while AOL cut 2,500 jobs. There was not a very good look for fourth quarter earnings either. There was a 26 percent drop. Hopefully by 2013, AOL can become profitable again, which it hopes to do with the Huffington Post.
Huffington changes AOL writing
Ariana Huffington founded the Huffington Post as a liberal blog with a $1 million purchase. In 2010, the Huffington Post had $31 million revenue and has a staff of 200. News came from traditional media outlets for the Huffington Post at first. But as its audience has grown, Huffington has hired away journalists from news outlets for instance the NY Times and Newsweek. AOL, which has built a reputation as a glorified content farm, is betting that Huffington and the Huffington Post will counter that negative image. The AOL new Huffington Post Press Group would have Huffington as the president and editor in chief. That would mean things such as TechCrunch, 5min Press and Thing Labs would be at her disposal.
Huffington details
Ariana Stassinopoulos was born in Athens, Greece and earned an MA in economics at Cambridge University in England. In 1997 she got a divorce from Michael Huffington who was a Bay Area oil millionaire that she had married. Governor of California was what Huffington ran for in 2003 as an independent. Then, Arnold Schwarzenegger won instead. In 2005, the Huffington Post was created by her. Now, each month there are 26 million visitors. Soon the AOL/Huffington Post deal ought to be closed. This spring is when it is expected to happen.
Information from
New York Times
nytimes.com/2011/02/07/business/media/07aol.html?_r=1&hp
Wall Street Journal
online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704422204576130002551387710.html
CNN Money
money.cnn.com/2011/02/07/technology/aol_huffington_post.cnnw/
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