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AOL to Buy Huffington Post for $315 Million
By Dan Nystedt, IDG News Feb 7, 2011 12:00 am
AOL has agreed to buy the second most popular news website in the U.S., The Huffington Post, for US$315 million, it said in a statement Monday.
The purchase brings a potent new web property to AOL, in addition to other major acquisitions the company has made in recent months. Last September, AOL bought technology news provider TechCrunch and its family of websites.
![[Image: 218860-aol_huffpo_logos180_original.jpg]](http://zapp5.staticworld.net/news/graphics/218860-aol_huffpo_logos180_original.jpg) The Huffington Post ranked second in the U.S. only behind New York Times branded-sites in a poll of online newspapers by ComScore last November. The site garnered 26 million unique visitors that month, compared to 34.6 million for New York Times sites.
AOL will create a next-generation American media company with global reach with the acquisition of The Huffington Post, it said in the statement.
"Following the close of this transaction, AOL will accelerate its strategy to deliver a scaled and differentiated array of premium news, analysis, and entertainment produced by thousands of writers, editors, reporters, and videographers around the globe," AOL said in a statement.
Arianna Huffington, who co-founded the Huffington Post in 2005, will be named President and Editor-in-Chief of a new division at AOL that will integrate all Huffington Post and AOL content, including Engadget, TechCrunch, Moviefone, MapQuest, and more.
The new division, called The Huffington Post Media Group, will likely face scrutiny as it is implemented. AOL has retained many of the founders of news websites purchased over the years, such as Michael Arrington at TechCrunch, and left them largely in control of their domains. AOL will have to avoid alienating those news leaders as it builds the new division.
The addition of The Huffington Post will give AOL's group of sites a combined base of 117 million unique visitors a month in the U.S. and 270 million a month worldwide, the company said.
"The Huffington Post will continue on the same path we have been on for the last six years though now at light speed by combining with AOL," Huffington said in the AOL statement. "Our readers will still be able to come to the Huffington Post at the same URL, and find all the same content they've grown to love, plus a lot more," she added.
http://www.pcworld.com/article/218861/ao...llion.html
"You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.â€
Buckminster Fuller
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Quote:AOL will create a next-generation American media company with global reach with the acquisition of The Huffington Post, it said in the statement.
:vomit:
"It means this War was never political at all, the politics was all theatre, all just to keep the people distracted...."
"Proverbs for Paranoids 4: You hide, They seek."
"They are in Love. Fuck the War."
Gravity's Rainbow, Thomas Pynchon
"Ccollanan Pachacamac ricuy auccacunac yahuarniy hichascancuta."
The last words of the last Inka, Tupac Amaru, led to the gallows by men of god & dogs of war
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Not that I think the Huffpost radical in any sense but I do recognise that it is seen by some as 'alternative' media it makes this purchase look more like buying up/silencing alternative voices. And Arianna gets to remain editor in chief of what exactly?
"The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways. The point, however, is to change it." Karl Marx
"He would, wouldn't he?" Mandy Rice-Davies. When asked in court whether she knew that Lord Astor had denied having sex with her.
“I think it would be a good idea” Ghandi, when asked about Western Civilisation.
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THE BACKLASH BEGINS....
02.09.11 - 11:55 AM
Huffing It Down, Because It's Not Hers To Sell
by Abby Zimet
![[Image: adbusters_new__blog_huffpuff_2-493x265.jpg]](http://www.commondreams.org/sites/commondreams.org/files/resize/imce-images/adbusters_new__blog_huffpuff_2-493x265.jpg)
With the Huffington Post abandoning all left-ish pretenses and selling out to AOL, many of its former supporters are feeling used and peeved. Charging that Arianna Huffington cashed in after "building a blog-empire on the backs of thousands of citizen journalists," Adbusters has begun a campaign to use social media to promote truly progressive alternatives.
"As long as I live and breathe, this online newspaper - Narco News and its pages - will never be sold to a profit-making venture. Somebody has to set a higher standard around this water cooler called the Internet." - Narco News publisher Al Giordano
http://www.commondreams.org/further/2011/02/09-0
Quote:Socialite Arianna Huffington built a blog-empire on the backs of thousands of citizen journalists. She exploited our idealism and let us labor under the illusion that the Huffington Post was different, independent and leftist. Now she's cashed in and three thousand indie bloggers find themselves working for a megacorp.
But the Huffington Post is not Arianna's to sell. It is ours: the lefty writers and readers, environmentalism activists and anti-corporate organizers who flooded the site with 25 million visits a month. So we're going to take it back.
We'll stop going to her site. And we'll stop blogging for her too. Then we'll give birth to an alternative to AOL's HuffPo by using the #huffpuff hash tag to tell the world about our favorite counter-culture websites and indie blogs.
We are the ones who built the Huffington Post. And now we will be the ones who will huff & puff it down.
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http://www.adbusters.org/blogs/adbusters...ment-28770
Why I've Removed My Journalism from Huffington Post
Posted by Al Giordano - February 7, 2011 at 1:39 pm By Al Giordano
![[Image: aol3.jpeg]](http://narcosphere.narconews.com/userfiles/70/aol3.jpeg)
From September 2007 to August 2009 I crossposted 26 of my stories to The Huffington Post, mostly about US politics. Most of those stories were cheerfully featured by HuffPo editors on their publication's front page. But, as time went on, I grew uncomfortable with how that website was transparently becoming more and more sensationalist, cult-of-personality generated, and with my sense that it was pandering to panic and poutrage in order to boost hit counts, and so I lost interest in posting there anymore.
Well, now we can see why HuffPo went in that direction.
After reading media accounts last night that Arianna Huffington had sold her online publication to America Online (AOL) for $315 million US dollars, I woke up thinking, "oh, my... and now an association with the mega-corporation AOL is going to be imposed on me?"
Not so fast.
This morning I dug up my old HuffPo password and logged in to the control panel, where I was greeted with this breathless spin:
EXCITING NEWS - The Huffington Post has been acquired by AOL, instantly creating one of the biggest media companies in the world, with global, national, and local reach -- combining original reporting, opinion, video, social engagement and community, and leveraged across every platform, including the web, mobile, and tablets. Our bloggers have always been a very big part of HuffPost's identity - and will continue to be a very big part of who we are. The HuffPost blog team will continue to operate as it always has. Thank you for being such a vital part of the HuffPost family - which has suddenly gotten a whole lot bigger.
Maybe so. But that "family" (cough, cough) has simultaneously gotten a little bit smaller as a consequence. It took me all of 90 minutes this morning to erase all my content from Huffington Post and replace it with this message where the text had appeared on each of the 26 stories:
(As author and sole owner of the words in this story, I did not write them for AOL, and do not wish to have any association with it imposed upon me. The original text may still be found at http://narconews.com/thefield - Al Giordano, February 7, 2011)
This saga is, sadly, not the first or last case of a blogger or online renegade that ended up becoming swallowed by the very same inhuman mass media conglomeration that it claimed it had set out to oppose. Good luck to Huffington and company, but they'll have to cross back to the other side of the bridge without me.
And I can tell you this: As long as I live and breathe, this online newspaper - Narco News and its pages - will never be sold to a profit-making venture. That's because there is simply no way to obey the laws of advertising without compromising independence and edge. I don't care if "everybody else is doing it." Somebody has to set a higher standard around this water cooler called the Internet. Once again, it seems that it has to be us. We survived the first dot-com boom-and-bust a decade ago. And, as before, while others who went for the money will likely lose their independence and credibility, if not their existence, we'll outlive this one, too.
http://narcosphere.narconews.com/thefiel...ngton-post
"You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.â€
Buckminster Fuller
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Well, good for Al I hope all the others follow in his footsteps. And AOL is left with nothing.
"The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways. The point, however, is to change it." Karl Marx
"He would, wouldn't he?" Mandy Rice-Davies. When asked in court whether she knew that Lord Astor had denied having sex with her.
“I think it would be a good idea” Ghandi, when asked about Western Civilisation.
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News in Brief: HuffPost Bloggers Threaten Boycott Over AOL Merger, and More ...
Thursday 10 February 2011
[URL="http://www.truth-out.org/news-brief-mubarak-may-step-down-and-more67638"]by: Mike Ludwig, t r u t h o u t | News in Brief
[/URL] HuffPost Bloggers Threaten Boycott Over AOL Merger
Bloggers and writers for the Huffington Post feel betrayed by HuffPost founder Arianna Huffington's decision to sell her left-leaning news site to AOL. A blog post from the Adbusters web site claims that The Huffington exploited thousands of indie and liberal bloggers and is now cashing in by selling out to a "mega-corp." "But the Huffington Post is not Arianna's to sell," the Adbusters blog reads. "It is ours: the lefty writers and readers, environmentalism activists and anti-corporate organizers who flooded the site with 25 million visits a month." The blog announces a campaign to "Huff & Puff it down" by boycotting the site and promoting true independent blogs through Twitter.
"The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways. The point, however, is to change it." Karl Marx
"He would, wouldn't he?" Mandy Rice-Davies. When asked in court whether she knew that Lord Astor had denied having sex with her.
“I think it would be a good idea” Ghandi, when asked about Western Civilisation.
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Updated | Feb. 10 4:00 p.m.
#HUFFPUFF has touched a nerve. Now, a firestorm is developing as writers, readers and publishers of indie media are rallying to huff and puff Arianna's AOL merger into the ground.
Media activists, this is our chance to strike a blow against the corporate media and simultaneously energize the indie blogosphere … a step towards a world where the news that animates our political and activist lives is not controlled by those who pander to advertisers and the bottom line. With continued pressure, we can topple AOL-HuffPo and fertilize a healthy media ecology.
So let's keep blowing harder and harder!
- If you are a writer, take your content off the Huffington Post (like Al Giordano of @Narco_News did)
- If you are a HuffPo reader, unsubscribe/uninstall the app/delete your bookmark to the Huffington Post (like @jaberard, @RavenWytch, and @drlawler)
- Everyone, keep telling the world about your favorite alternative indie sites using the #huffpuff tag (see the list of alternatives nominated thus far below)
There is power in concerted effort, so let's keep huff'n & puff'n and huff'n & puff'n until we've blown AOL/HuffPost's house down!
Here is a list of alternative media sources our readers have suggested via twitter and on our blog:
Tweet your HuffPo alternative with the #huffpuff tag or post your suggestion in the comments below.
"The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways. The point, however, is to change it." Karl Marx
"He would, wouldn't he?" Mandy Rice-Davies. When asked in court whether she knew that Lord Astor had denied having sex with her.
“I think it would be a good idea” Ghandi, when asked about Western Civilisation.
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Hopefully AOL has paid $315 million for precisely nothing.....
"It means this War was never political at all, the politics was all theatre, all just to keep the people distracted...."
"Proverbs for Paranoids 4: You hide, They seek."
"They are in Love. Fuck the War."
Gravity's Rainbow, Thomas Pynchon
"Ccollanan Pachacamac ricuy auccacunac yahuarniy hichascancuta."
The last words of the last Inka, Tupac Amaru, led to the gallows by men of god & dogs of war
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