Posted on 02/07/2011 7:49:01 AM PST by SeekAndFind
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.The deal will allow AOL to greatly expand its news gathering and original content creation, areas that its chief executive, Tim Armstrong, views as vital to reversing a decade-long decline.
Arianna Huffington, the cable talk show pundit, author and doyenne of the political left, will take control of all of AOL's editorial content as president and editor in chief of a newly created Huffington Post Media Group. The arrangement will give her oversight not only of AOL's national, local and financial news operations, but also of the company's other media enterprises like MapQuest and Moviefone.
By handing so much control over to Ms. Huffington and making her a public face of the company, AOL, which has been seen as apolitical, risks losing its nonpartisan image. Ms. Huffington said her politics would have no bearing on how she ran the new business.
Ms. Huffington is one of the most aggressively partisan presences on the web, so her statement that "politics would have no bearing" on what appeared on the websites is a crock. Even if she's sincere, she doesn't know how to be non-partisan. In the 3 decades she has been commenting as a pundt, she has never once demonstrated one ounce of balance or even handedness in her take on the news. Why should anyone believe her now?
Every effort by conservatives to come up with a news portal to match Huffpo has failed. We better get busy. The left just got a big boost in connecting with the average American and with the 2012 elections coming up, you can expect they'll exploit this advantage for all that it's worth.
I disagree. HuffPo just tethered themselves to the Titanic. AOL has been hemorrhaging money. Let ‘em go down with the ship.
YEAH, LIKE THEY REALLY NEEDED ANOTHER ONE............
HuffPo content is created, but it's hardly original -- it can be found lining the ground of any barnyard.
AOL doesn’t even send out the free reflectors anymore. (Freebie AOL discs made great driveway reflectors)
AOL has been floundering around since their dial-up dominance went belly up.
Out of desperation they bought Time Warner(was it?), which was bad TW since there was no there there regarding AOL.
I think in the long run it isn’t going to have value.
I don’t in my eyes see the Huffington Post worth a third of a billion. Interesting, but makes no sense to me.
It’s a bad business decision. They overpaid by 99%, at least.
ICEBERG AHEAD!!! REVERSE ENGINES!!!!!
I agree with you. I think this merger is akin to those monstrously huge stores the Soviets set up to vend consumer goods. There was very little in stock, what was offered was largely unwanted, and the result was a dim, echoing, empty tribute to collectivism writ large.
This merger will accelerate the failure of both entities.
Exactly, my first thought as well. AOL is sinking fast and has been for years.
“...it can be found lining the ground of any barnyard” AND FILLING HUFFINGTON’S INTRACRANIAL SPACE.
Yours is a perfect summary.
She saw the writing on the blog wall, and decided to get out while the gettin' was good ($$$)...
There’s still FOX News, The Daily Caller, The Blaze.... Not only that, Rupert Murdoch has his new iPad daily coming out. The truth will always shine through.
If Arianna wants to throw millions away, let her. It’s still not going to change the fact that Americans have had enough of Chairman Obama’s schemes and incompetence.
Exactly. And this gives her a way to "retire" from her duties without having to abandon the site. She can just be famous for being famous soon. She'll go on the talk shows and make a general pest of herself and her worthless opinions.
Glenn Beck is becoming quite the media mogul himself. He recently hired the woman who took the HuffPo to a great deal of success and just hired SE Cupp last week.
AOL's time as relevant has long since passed. That they spent this kind of money for a liberal rag blog of often factually inaccurate postings is laughable. And Moran thinks we ought to be cowering in fear.
Joke.
I emailed the AOL/HuffPo merger story to 4 folks in my email address book who still used AOL as their ISP.
I am pleased to report that two of them have made the decision to drop AOL.
I encourage everyone to look at your email address book for friends with an AOL.com address. Send them an email about the AOL/HuffPo merger. Otherwise they may never hear about the merger.
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