Kara Swisher

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Exclusive Video: AOL's Tim Armstrong and HuffPo's Arianna Huffington Talk About Their Acquisition Touchdown From the Super Bowl

Here’s an exclusive video interview BoomTown did with Huffington Post co-founder and Editor in Chief Arianna Huffington and AOL CEO Tim Armstrong this morning at Super Bowl XLV in Texas, just ahead of their announcement tonight that the Internet company was buying the news and opinion site.

Like both the Green Bay Packers and the Pittsburgh Steelers, the pair are going for an Internet content win, after AOL paid $315 million, mostly in cash and a small amount of stock, for the Huffington Post.

With the acquisition of one of the Internet’s best-known news brands, AOL is making its biggest move so far as it seeks to establish itself as a content leader on the Web.

As part of the deal, Huffington will become editor over all AOL content properties.

And editorial material from all these sites will be integrated into the Huffington Post, giving it a huge new infusion of editorial material.

The pair talk about all this and more in the longish video interview here, which I did in Dallas earlier today:


comments so far. Add yours.

  • Anonymous

    So, will I have to go back to dial-up, use a Netscape email addy, and use MS DOS to access Huffpo/AOL? Win The Future!

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_DX5MITZ3MJP7O7SGQDR3T6VNJY Casa

    I gotta hand it to that the reporter who grilled Ariana on her selling out to AOL. Don’t ever lie and say its about the money when we’re talking $315 mil.

  • http://allthingsd.com/boomtown Kara Swisher

    It was just me asking the questions, so thanks!

  • http://www.facebook.com/prchrisclayton Chris Clayton

    Excuse me if this sounds rude, but Isnt this 2011?
    Why are you still stuck in the 1990′s?
    AOL has moved on, why haven’t you?

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_MF2ELCUDZ2J5EV3UJAXZYOW6YY Radar

    I didn’t know AOL still had fanboys. Speaking of moving on, why haven’t YOU?

  • http://twitter.com/io_psychic_tv IO Psychic TV

    Zapped…

  • http://profiles.yahoo.com/u/HO65GQOEKQRLUUUCMXX4KD6QGE bbbbmer

    Absolutely FRIGHTENING… A total corporate sellout guised as a ‘move to the center’….

    What HOGWASH!

    Yes, Arianna is remaking herself — again — this time attempting to ‘centerize’ the progressives who made her….

    Once a whore, always a whore…

  • http://profiles.yahoo.com/u/HO65GQOEKQRLUUUCMXX4KD6QGE bbbbmer

    Absolutely FRIGHTENING… A total corporate sellout guised as a ‘move to the center’….

    What HOGWASH!

    Yes, Arianna is remaking herself — again — this time attempting to ‘centerize’ the progressives who made her….

    Once a whore, always a whore…

  • Jennifer Bedingfield

    Just like the AOL-Timewarner merger SOILED CNN, this one will further SOIL fluffpost. And to all you Obamabots on this site, I am proud that I voted thrice for Ralph Nader !

  • Jennifer Bedingfield

    Small and local does not fit her style. Like most of the cornfed electorate, “too big to fail” suits her just fine. No wonder this nation is a PATHETIC LAUGHING STOCK ! :.(

  • http://www.facebook.com/dougatronic Campbell Douglas

    How come AOL wont let me cancel my account?

  • Anonymous

    LOL what? AOL is still around? I had no idea.

    http://www.ultimate-privacy.tk

  • http://www.facebook.com/lisajohnsonmandell Lisa Johnson Mandell

    As a lead blogger for AOL Jobs, I am thrilled by this news. My personal mission has always been to help people put bread on the table. Sometimes that message gets lost in the quest for traffic. But with the Huffpo’s emphasis on service, I think we can make a real difference in helping people find and keep their jobs.

  • http://twitter.com/samkiller Sam BESSALAH

    You voted Nader?? now I see why I can’t take all your post seriously!

  • Jennifer Bedingfield

    Oh KISS MY ASS ! At least I know how to vote with my heart and on principles while all you care about is “winning elections”. But what does that matter to you? You seem “happy” with Obama and the Democrats doing everything you would rage against the Republicans doing. Consider yourself a Ronnie Raygunite !

  • Anonymous

    Arianna has sold out to the big corporate world. There goes my favorite news source. Can’t wait for the next HuffPost-like site to come online.

  • http://www.facebook.com/john.stefano John Stefano

    AOL got a bargain. No one else is cash rich enough to make this deal.

  • http://twitter.com/smithr17 Russ Smith

    SELL OUT!!!! SELL OUT!!!

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_AIGMWIYBHKR2PKG4M3PLM5RSQA allah_speaking

    No, there are plenty of companies cash rich enough to do this deal. Just that they are a lot smarter than AOL…LOL!

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_G76GR3YTE6B2ZD7ZYSBXTN5ZPE PCFree

    Hey Arianna, are you or your people reading all the negative comments about this? Do you have that sick feeling in your stomach that you just made the biggest mistake of your life and no one will take Huffington Post seriously anymore? Took you six years to get it profitable and one night to flush it down the toilet!

  • http://twitter.com/smithr17 Russ Smith

    Join my Facebook group Huffington­Post + AOL = I quit http://www­.facebook.­com/ho.....9­1897444

  • http://twitter.com/Queenofall Elizabeth Berry

    I’m with all the other comments. What a disappointment! Well I guess we know Arianna’s price: $325 million.

    Too bad! Arianna Huffington turned out to be just another pimp for Wall Street Corporate America.

    AOL has a long corporate history of committing fraud against its customers and getting away with it.

    Too bad as more media consolidates into the folds of rich and our Congress pretend like they don’t understand words like monopoly and anti-trust actions.

  • http://twitter.com/Queenofall Elizabeth Berry

    one more thing: while Arianna won’t give a hoot, this is one business deal that AOL will come to regret because people like me won’t be reading Huffington sellout any more. And the scooter moms and pops who subscribe to AOL ripoff won’t read it either because Huffington Post, unless they rebrand it will be the devils “liberal” media to the AOL crowd. I don’t now what AOL was thinking, but it’s clear what Arianna had in mind and it is not about any of the unwashed tripe she is yammering about on the video. It’s about $325 million dollars. Not a bad purse.

  • Anonymous

    I wonder what’s going to happen to our personal info on HP?

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=74800746 Andras Konya

    How insane for you not to accept corporate characters Wall Street and defense contractors give you.

    That’s the problem with Huffpost: it’s been too corporate and too tabloidy. They don’t question Obama on things they questioned Bush (war, Wall Street, etc).

  • http://twitter.com/awake247 awake247

    1 + 1 = 11 – “That’s inexplicable” – Kara Swisher
    Too funny

  • http://twitter.com/gymnation Jim Nation

    This is scary. Huffpo follows other sources of information into total corporate control.

  • Jennifer Bedingfield

    I love my “insanity”. :.)

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_DX5MITZ3MJP7O7SGQDR3T6VNJY Casa

    You rock, KSwish. Keep it up!

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Roger-H-Werner/1052232764 Roger H Werner

    As a life long liberal and user of Huffington Post since the beginning, Arianna Huffington’s sale of her company to AOL was all about money and power. She makes a fortune and presumably gains more influence in the media…a win win situation for her. As for Huffington Post? I hate sounding cynical but I get the sense that Huffington Post has just been sacrificed to sate Ms. Huffington’s ego and to reinvigorate her bank account.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Robin-Eublind/100000308185921 Robin Eublind

    Over the course of the past decades, the American audience has been conditioned to accept and expect sound bit, truncated, flashy and sugar coated, encapsulated news and information. The short attention span theatre approach to the dissemination of news and information has ill served the electorate. Corporate control and consolidation tends to steer and lead rather than enlighten and inform.The long form and investigative approach is all but dead, and with it’s demise, much of the truth.

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