The New York Times
The Huffington Post, which began in 2005 with a meager $1 million investment and has grown into one of the most heavily visited news Web sites in the country, is being acquired by AOL in a deal that creates an unlikely pairing of two online media giants.
The two companies completed the sale Sunday evening and announced the deal just after midnight on Monday. AOL will pay $315 million, $300 million of it in cash and the rest in stock. It will be the company’s largest acquisition since it was separated from Time Warner in 2009.
Found by Cinàedh.
I’d say bad deal.
The way I see it the only thing just about any website has to distinguish it from all the also rans is the management.
In they sell it usually means the no longer have control and/or they no longer feel the drive to make it succeed and its no longer a good investment.
I think I’m starting to see that with Leo over at twit with Leo. He wants to go on vacation for three weeks rather than build the franchise. Nothing wrong with that but the franchise starts to drift and next thing you know somebody with the drive he’s lost has taken the lead.
The HuffPo has actually hired quite a few journalists, (what the heck J-School graduates are running the streets begging for work,) but they are primarily a news aggregator.
What makes the HuffPo different is that they have opened the site to commentary by the great unwashed, (sort of like this site, doan’chano,
where ignorant people can see their opinions vanish into the general hubbub.
Then again, its possible to get to the NYT website and leave comments there that are just as relevant.
My phrase for it is: “Trying to steer an elephant from a vantage point slightly in front of and below its tail.”
Its like punditry which is: “Trying to guess at the direction of an elephant from a vantage point slightly in front of and below its tail.
And by the way, my own comments on this blog are strictly because I like to see my own opinions on a screen, not because I think anybody else could/should/would give a damn.
If anyone agree with me, whooppee!
If not, who gives a fuck?
Hey Animby!
Not anymore.
Conservatives haven’t really done anything innovative in news since talk radio (which was brilliant, btw). That’s why they hate the Huff.
So the white whale (AOL) finally manages to consume Ahab (H.Post) whole. And now comes the part where the Beast temps the rest of the loyal crew to follow, to their deaths. Seems I’ve heard this story before…. somewhere.
whoa… killing two demented birds with no stones
#25 If hate is demonstrated by laughter then yes, the HP is highly hated.
Good news, that’s the end of the PuffinStuffington Post. He Ha He He……
Whatever………………………………..
Traaxx
According to the Fox News comments, sounds like there are lots of olds trying to cancel their AOL accounts. One, good luck canceling, and two, can these people handle a wide-open replacement ISP? Lol grandpa’s losing his ‘socialist’ filters.
Lately I’ve been fascinated by how Fox and the AM pundits have convinced their base that everything else is where we find the bias. Over time they have turned that base into zombies who project and turn logic on its head, incapable of original or critical thought. Fascinating, but scary.
#30 Lefty zombie calling the kettle black. Amusing, to say the least.
I’m just hoping they’ll flood every store in America with billions of free Huffington Post CD’s. You can make such cool stuff out of them — mailbox reflectors and mobiles to hang over baby cribs and such.
#25 agreed. The right seized on the fact that conservatives still use AM radio.
So now AOL is a porn site?
So will Huffington Post start paying for those op-eds they put on their site? Seems Arianna made $300 million with low wage labor.
AOL.. How embarrassing to have an aol email address.
Huffington.. How embarrassing to get your information from a leftist rag.
#34 Apparently a gay porn site now if we believe #3
Pedro, have you been huffing Alfie’s post again?
The hyper-inflated money has to go somewhere.
This is not real money. And given the 1 billion dollar earlier purchase event off the current HINFL curve it was a bargain!!??
This is just the play of the monopoly money kings who are desperate to find any kind of possible asset before the sovereign debt crisis explodes- possibly next year.
Don’t worry about them, worry about how you are going to eat when the unemployment insurance/99day extensions stop. Buy lots of bulk storable and defendible food now.
Oh and whatever you do don’t buy gold at 1.5 times current prices off a gold bug near you. The 1300 price point is designed to collapse once enough fools have purchased the gold bugs’ store.
# 1 bobbo, making Charles Darwin cry said:
“Its the quality/dedication of the management that provides the quality of the website and what is going to keep that going once the principals are rich/rich/rich?”
Don’t be too troubled — while Ms H. will certainly garner a nice chunk of change it will be a TINY percentage of the purchase price. And make no mistake, she was nowhere close to poor beforehand…
I sincerely doubt AOL has any interest in the politics of the Huffington Post — as they used to say in the ’90s, “It’s all about the eyeballs, baby!”
I also doubt being owned by AOL will seriously impact the popularity of the site — engadget and TechCrunch and the other large popular sites AOL owns appear to be doing okay.