A Brief History of the Huffington Post
Friday, November 02, 2007
This past Monday, an interesting article by Fortune's Richard Siklos was published on CNNMoney about The Huffington Post. It caught my eye because we usually don't think of these Web 2.0 media outlets as businesses, but The Huffington Post turns out to be a high prized commodity for its founder Arriana Huffington.
Siklos' lengthy piece takes us to the very beginnings, when the Post was simply an idea, and a rocky one at best. "When the site first went live, the heavy betting was that it would quickly become a footnote in the sad annals of online ventures by celebrities -- anyone remember RodmanTV.com?"
I don't, but I guess that's the point.
The Huffington Post not only survived, but thrived in an environment that was not yet inundated with news social networks. In those days, Arriana started things off by hiring editors who would sift through the day's news and link to articles that they deemed interesting or worthy of a read. Original content was also provided by self-recruited team of volunteer bloggers.
These bloggers are perhaps the thing that sets the Huffington Post apart from most other sites of its kind. Arriana ran and still runs in celebrity circles. When she began her venture, she wanted to make sure to take advantage of her connections by asking some of these folks to write for her site. After all, whether we like to admit it or not, we all take interest in what celebrities think. She got a bunch of eager names in the beginning and now, most of her friends and acquaintances who are asked to contribute to The Huffington Post are honored.
The site now attracts over 90 million readers a month, which is approximately the amount of traffic the Philadelphia Inquirer site gets. Granted, the Huffington Post aims to reach a national audience, so the numbers are not staggering, but still significant enough.
The lesson learned here is that while there are no shortage of bloggers out there who serve a niche interest, even the ones that are trying to please the masses are having notable success. Labels: blog, new media, Public Relations, Web 2.0
posted by Gina Bolotinsky
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