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Since 2008 – Progress Through Politics

AOL Buys the Huffington Post

Last night, AOL and Arianna Huffington signed a deal whereby AOL will acquire the Huffington Post and Arianna Huffington will acquire editorial oversight over all AOL media.

A.H. describes this as a merger of visions.  Comments in response to her piece at the Huffington Post about the deal seem to be generally negative.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/…

Is this deal good for progressive political thought and the proponents of progressive ideas?  Will Arianna Huffington be the next Ted Turner?  At least she is getting the bulk of the consideration in cash, up front.


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/ 64 Comments

64 comments

  1. jsfox

    Is this deal good for progressive political thought and the proponents of progressive ideas?

    This assumes that HuffPo was good for progressive political thought in the first place. I maintain it was not. Why? It had a very hard time separating fact from fiction. In the never ending attempt to scoop with blaring NYPost style headlines it usually failed miserably at getting the story correct. Facts are supposed to have a liberal bias, but first the facts need to be actual facts.

  2. spacemanspiff

    LMFAO- AOL bought Huffington Post for $315 mil.

    The comment thread on Huff Post is delicious.  

    by: DTOzone @ Mon Feb 07, 2011 at 00:15:12 AM EST

    [ Reply |   Fail   Fierce ]

    It’s more than just a blog now but still. Arianna really is a very smart woman.

    She combined the Druge Report/ TMZ/ Left Blogistan and ran with it.

    I have to admire her hustle if anything. How much did she initially invest to get that place running?  

    So much money. Damn.

  3. virginislandsguy

    and her HP co-founder.

    Past VC funding rounds:

    2006   $5 Million

    2007   $5 Million

    2008  $25 Million

    Major Players:

    Arianna Huffington, co-founder  personal funding

    Ken Lerer CEO, co-founder, former Executive Vice President of AOL Time Warner  personal funding

    Bob Pittman   former AOL COO  personal funding

    VCs:

    Softbank Capital

    Greycroft Partners

    Oak Investment Partners

    Tidbit:

    Co-founder Lerer says it has no plans to begin paying bloggers, the story says. Ever. “That’s not our financial model…We offer them visibility, promotion and distribution with a great company.”

    Petty observation:

    Ariannas photo in the NYT is not flattering. hmmm…

    DK tie-in:

    2008 (25M VC funding) was when diary HP links jumped from 250 per year to 1000 per year.

  4. Peter Jukes

    …and the imminent launch of DK4, I can’t help feeling there’s a (corporatist!) emerging pattern going on here with the Left Blogosphere.

    Just as the right game their culture wars to make white working class Americans vote against their economic self interest, I can’t help wondering if the entrepreneurs of Blogistan have gamed the left into more strident denunciations, in order to help their financial self interest.

    The desire for traffic, ads, outrage, more outrage, bellicosity and moral posturing seems to be the underlying premise of the publicity seeking pundits. I have no idea how much Markos makes out of Kos, but Arianna’s profit margin here is not only amazing, but borderline obscene.

    We see the political blogosphere as a place to debate, inform, entertain. But for many owners of sites, it’s like a potential Yukon.

    And this distorts political debate, and makes the terms of trade on information and opinion, unfairly slanted towards noise and conflict.

    BTW: are there any other anarch-syndicalist communes like the Moose in left blogistan. It genuinely is community owned, community run. Are there any other examples of this?  

  5. HappyinVT

    a particular story.  I hadn’t been there for months prior and I really don’t intend to go back anytime soon.  I tend to go to TPM for the news like I used to go to HuffPo.  It is just too tabloid-y.  I can ignore most of the entertainment and/trashy stories if the rest of the content made up for some laxes.

    Balloon Juice has a link to a story about how the deal started ~ Arianna and the AOL guy are apparently long-lost twins who found each other in November and were able to finish each other’s sentences.  They decided to make their familial relationship public by merging HuffPo with AOL while giving Arianna editorial license.  Seems like the whole thing was done in haste and I have a suspicion we’ll see the end of HuffPo by the end of the year.

  9. Stipes

    businessperson, but she’s not a progressive, (or really a liberal), by any measure.  

    She’s built a brand that has, unfortunately, been labeled as ‘left,’ but is more based on her late opposition to Bush 43s experiments with conservatism, than anything truly progressive at it’s core.

    This is a media deal and not really about the future of a progressive voice in the blogosphere.  

    I don’t think there will be much impact in our arena, since HuffPo has always been more of a TMZ meets Politico type mashup, unlike TPM, DK, or even Salon.  

  11. Rashaverak

    http://www.mediabistro.com/fis…

    Basically, they function like a cross between Gawker’s tiered, “starred commenter” system and Foursquare badges. HuffPost badges are awarded based on user activity and interactivity, so, for example, those who regularly comment on the site or share stories across social networks like Twitter can receive a “Superuser” badge. Readers who go through flagging inappropriate comments to feel some modicum of power as they sit in their sad little cubicles all day can earn “Moderator” badges.

    In other words: HuffPo badges are Pokemon for adults. Or maybe it’s more like Dungeons and Dragons[.]

    All that aside, the badges will likely, given the Huffington Post’s reader base, prove to be a successful, ingenious way of upping visits and views to the site as commenters and readers return to see the fruits of their Networking, Superusing, and/or Moderating efforts.

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