AOL's purchase of the Huffington Post will help the blog with plans for a "massive expansion" in 2011, and bring its content to a much wider audience, founder Arianna Huffington said Monday. HuffPo, however, was "not for sale," and the blog only agreed to the AOL acquisition because of how its existing properties will help the blog grow, Huffington said during a conference call with analysts. "Nobody was in a hurry to cash out; everybody believed we could do an IPO down the road, so there's really an opportunity that the [AOL] team provided us with that was so exciting and that really determined the timing."
On Sunday night, AOL announced plans to acquire HuffPo for $315 million. Huffington will become editor-in-chief of the newly formed Huffington Post Media Group, which will include all AOL content sites, including TechCrunch, Engadget, and Patch.
"Our goals for 2011 included a massive expansion at the local level, launching on the global scene, starting with Brazil, and doing a lot more on the woman's space," she said. AOL will help accomplish that, particularly its localized Patch brand, which Huffington said will boost coverage during the 2012 elections.
HuffPo emerged in 2005 as a left-leaning political blog that included contributions from political figures, celebrities, and average bloggers alike. When asked how the political nature of HuffPo might be affected after the AOL merger, Huffington said Monday that its politics section now only accounts for 15 percent of traffic.
"We've really transformed ourselves," Huffington said.
The blog now has 26 sections, the most recent of which focuses on divorce.
HuffPo has gained in popularity in recent years, but has also been criticized for recycling content, or writing blurbs based on the reporting of more established media organizations, with links back to those stories. Chief among Huffington's critics is Rupert Murdoch, who – during a December 2009 debate with Huffington – accused her blog of "feeding off the hard-earned efforts and investments of others." Huffington countered that she'd never had a single complaint from other sites. "If we were misappropriating, we would have heard from them," she said.
On Monday, Huffington said the blog is currently focused on producing "high-quality content in a cost-effective way." She pointed to the partnerships that HuffPo has set up between established editors and junior reporters. "Young reporters have been breaking stories [after] being mentored by established editors," she said. "This is something that is very congruent with citizen journalism, with what Patch is doing."
HuffPo understands "how people consume news today," something that "legacy media" organizations sometimes do not, Huffington said.
For AOL, the company chose to purchase HuffPo rather than set up a partnership because "it boils down to our strategy [and] the art of war – where you can win and how do you have the upside in the future," said Tim Armstrong, AOL's CEO. "HuffPo offers us an ability to accelerate the core strategy" of premium content.
Armstrong channeled Steve Jobs by promising "magical experiences" via the new Huffington Post Media Group.
In terms of logistics, Armstrong said he will spend the next 30 days integrating the organizations, though he said "this may be the smallest disruption of any transaction I've ever worked on."
In a Monday morning e-mail to readers and bloggers, Huffington said "far from changing the Huffington Post's editorial approach, our culture, or our mission, it will be like stepping off a fast-moving train and onto a supersonic jet. We're still traveling toward the same destination, with the same people at the wheel, and with the same goals, but we're now going to get there much, much faster."
