AllThingsD » Arianna Huffington

Hey, AOL Content Makers! Meet Your New Boss, Susan Lyne -- And Start Thinking About Video, Right Now.

Peter Kafka — Mon, 04 Mar 2013 13:05:26 +0000

If you work at AOL, and you make or sell content, and you don’t work for Arianna Huffington, you’ve got a new boss today.

But perhaps you’re like TechCrunch editor Alexia Tsotsis, and you’re wondering what Susan Lyne, AOL’s new Brand Group CEO, looks and sounds like. Happy to oblige, via a brief video interview below.

If you’re in a hurry and/or don’t want to watch six-minute shakycam clips:

Beyond the broad ideas she announced in her staff email last week (customers are important, so is mobile, content is a big deal, etc.), Lyne says she doesn’t have an action plan ready to spring on AOL. So if there’s yet another reorg coming, it could take a while.
Lyne’s resume includes stints running Gilt and Martha Stewart, but what’s probably most important for AOL is her TV career, which peaked when she ran entertainment for ABC. That doesn’t mean that she’s going to turn every AOL site into a TV show, but it does mean she thinks there’s a lot more each site can do when it comes to “programming” in general, and video in particular.
But what about Mike Shields’s smart critique in AdWeek, where he notes that, despite lots of past pronouncements, AOL hasn’t done a lot to create its own signature video programming?* ”If we were doing everything really well already, then I wouldn’t be here.”
And speaking of TechCrunch, how are things going with her cranky employees, anyway? Just swell, says Lyne, who says she’s emailed with Tsotsis, and plans to meet her in person, too. Soon! But she’s not going to stop using the word “brand,” which is good, since it’s on her business card. “What brand means is there are a set of assumptions and expectations people bring to view, whenever they come visit you. And that’s definitely what TechCrunch has. And by the way, [Tsotsis] did exactly what people expected of her [last week] when she came after me.”

Translation: If you’re trying to get fired by acting out, Alexia, a cheeky post won’t cut it. Up the ante!

[ See post to watch video ]

*AOL’s overall video business, however, has ramped up very nicely, due to the company’s acquisition of video distributor/syndicator 5Min in 2010.

Exclusive: AOL Poised to Hire Susan Lyne to Run All Content Brands, Except HuffPo

Kara Swisher — Wed, 27 Feb 2013 22:17:56 +0000

Sources said AOL is set to hire well-known media and Internet exec Susan Lyne to be CEO of its content brands unit at the New York-based Web company, except for the Huffington Post Media Group headed by Arianna Huffington.

Lyne has most recently been chairman of the Gilt Groupe and was CEO previous to that. She will retain her board role at the online retailer, but is likely to give up her director role at AOL. She is set to be on its executive operating committee going forward.

Lyne has had a long and varied career in media and is a high-profile hire. Beside Gilt, she also ran Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia and was a top television network exec at ABC.

At AOL, she will have purview over a range of properties, including TechCrunch, Engadget and StyleList.

In related news, Bloomberg reported earlier that COO Artie Minson was departing AOL, but there are no immediate plans for him to leave. But that could change, since CEO Tim Armstrong has been moving to decentralize the company and his role could shift accordingly.

An AOL spokesperson declined to comment.

Two Years After Dramatic HuffPost Buy, AOL's Armstrong and Arianna Talk About the Sometimes Rocky Road (Video)

Kara Swisher — Thu, 17 Jan 2013 21:41:52 +0000

Even though it seems like a dog’s age, it has been only two years since AOL bought the Huffington Post at the Super Bowl XLV in Dallas (yes, papers were actually signed there).

Back then — after AOL ponied up $315 million, mostly in cash, to buy one of the Web’s most prominent news and opinion sites, along with one of the most famous women on the Web as its leader — the pair called it: “One plus one equals 11.”

Looking back today, it’s more like one plus one equals fireworks — given all the dramatic narrative that has ensued since the deal was struck. While it started off with a series of splashy joint appearances — hey, world, it’s the Tim and Arianna show! — some bumps in the road later resulted in a fair amount of tension between Armstrong and Huffington, which the two now say has passed.

That has included a big, ugly (but still riveting) fight among and between Armstrong, Huffington and Michael Arrington of TechCrunch, another AOL property. Without reliving the messy timeline and ethical traffic accident, Arrington left after a lot of Sturm und Drang, verbally trashing Huffington on his way out the door, even though he later returned to the fold as a columnist.

(Bygones? Whatever!)

More importantly, while her role was conceived much more broadly and horizontally at the time of the acquisition, as a kind of overall content ruler at AOL, that clearly did not work out as envisioned and — perhaps as it should have been from the start — it has since been made very vertical.

That has essentially meant Huffington gets to rule over her fast-expanding empire of global sites under her name, with Armstrong footing the investment and tending to fixing the other parts of the company.

Thus, for now at least, all’s well that ends well. AOL’s stock has soared this year, after a series of shrewd financial and organizational moves by Armstrong, and Huffington is ever busy opening yet another international Web outpost.

I checked in with both on how they are doing, in separate video interviews that I did last week in New York, where AOL is located. And to remember how this Web marriage started, I’ve also included the the one I did two years ago in Dallas at the dawn of the relationship.

Enjoy:

[ See post to watch video ]

Around the World in 80 Ways: Huffington Post Now Lands in Japan

Kara Swisher — Fri, 14 Dec 2012 11:00:50 +0000

As part of what is beginning to feel like a global takeover, the Huffington Post Media Group said it will be launching a Japanese-language version of the service in that country.

The AOL-owned content arm will be partnering with the well-known Japanese publisher, Asahi Shimbun, in what will be its first Asian effort. The Huffington Post currently has versions in the United Kingdom, Canada, France, Spain and Italy.

As in previous efforts across the globe, the site will include news, blogging, community, video and social tools. The Huffington Post Japan joint venture is currently looking for an editor in chief, and is still formulating how the arrangement will work.

The partnership with Asahi is key, said Jimmy Maymann, CEO of the Huffington Post Media Group, in an interview yesterday.

“One of the things is that the Japanese market is one of the largest newspaper markets, and they are still doing well,” he said. “So, big media companies have not had to think about the next iteration of new media, and that’s a huge opportunity for us.”

Right now, he said, the Huffington Post Japan’s main news competition would be Yahoo News from Yahoo Japan.

Arianna Huffington, president and editor in chief of the Huffington Post Media Group, noted that the site would be up soon, even as she looks for more markets. Next up: Latin America.

“International momentum and global presence is a big win for us,” she said. “It’s a great model for us to partner with great media companies, so we can move very fast.”

Maymann Named Huffington Post CEO

John Murrell — Thu, 06 Dec 2012 17:34:17 +0000

Jimmy Maymann, who had been serving as AOL’s head of international operations, has been named CEO of the Huffington Post Media Group. He will report to Arianna Huffington, president and editor-in-chief, and now also chair of the Huffington Post Media Group. Maymann was the co-founder of Goviral, a content distribution network acquired by AOL in 2011.

GPS for the Web Soul: Huffington Post and OWN Launch HuffPost OWN

Kara Swisher — Thu, 01 Nov 2012 15:59:57 +0000

The Huffington Post Media Group and the Oprah Winfrey Network are today launching a site the pair of media giants had announced in May, called — no surprise — HuffPost OWN.

The latest niche destination in a wide-ranging rollout for the AOL-owned HuffPost sites — there are almost 70 now — will focus on inspiration.

In a press release, the pair said the new section on the huge online publishing platform will provide “practical advice and ideas to help users find motivation, inspiration and fulfillment.”

For example, one featured story today is titled “Mantras to Get You Through a Hard Week,” while another advises “How To Find 7 More Hours In Your Day.” (If I found one more, I’d be happy.)

And, of course, my personal favorite: “When Holding a Grudge Can Be Good for Your Health.”

There’s a lot of wish fulfillment on HuffPost OWN, too, with Oprah’s Favorite Things — her gift giveaway efforts that turned into a phenom — as a major element on the site, including Favorite Things trivia and a video mashup of the best Favorite Things moments from “The Oprah Winfrey Show.”

The dedicated version of the Oprah.com site on the Huffington Post platform has a range of social and interactive offerings, and has integrated access to the HuffPost audience, which is much larger.

The content is supplied by writers and producers of Oprah.com, which will continue to operate independently.

In a blog post, Winfrey waxed poetic on the concept for the site:

“These are fragile, turbulent, challenging, exciting and often frightening times. More than ever we need to be in touch with our internal GPS — the inner voice that knows right from wrong that’s always guiding us true North. I want to use this fantastic Web space to help point us there.”

Added Huffington, in her own blog post:

“Oprah was, in fact, made for the Internet. She was about engagement and authenticity and connection long before the Web discovered them. Oprah has always been about making connections, engaging her audience, and forming community — all central parts of the online and social media experience.”

Tech Scores on Forbes' 100 Most Powerful Women List: Gates, Sandberg, Mayer and More

Kara Swisher — Sun, 26 Aug 2012 22:00:47 +0000

Women in tech had a good showing on Forbes magazine’s 2012 “The World’s 100 Most Powerful Women” list, which came out this past week.

Like the higher-profile tally from Fortune, it features the female movers and shakers from a variety of arenas.

No. 1 on the list is German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who has certainly had her hands full with the economic crisis in Europe this past year.

But women related to tech also were numerous in the group, so here’s the rundown:

No. 4: Melinda Gates, co-chair, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

No. 10: Sheryl Sandberg, COO, Facebook

No. 15: Virginia Rometty, president and CEO, IBM

No. 17: Ursula Burns, president and CEO, Xerox

No. 18: Meg Whitman, CEO, Hewlett-Packard

No. 21: Marissa Mayer, CEO, Yahoo

No. 25: Susan Wojcicki, SVP, Google

No. 29: Arianna Huffington, editor-in-chief, Huffington Post Media Group, AOL

No. 48: Safra Katz, president and CFO, Oracle

No. 49: Laurene Powell Jobs, founder and chair, Emerson Collective

No. 58: Padmasree Warrior, CTO and chief strategy officer, Cisco

No. 70: Sue Gardner, executive director, WikiMedia Foundation

No. 84: Mary Meeker, general partner, Kleiner Perkins

AOL Bets Big on Web Video News With HuffPost Live (And on Tape)

Peter Kafka — Mon, 13 Aug 2012 12:30:38 +0000

After a very long drum roll, the Huffington Post launches HuffPost Live, its streaming Web video news operation, this morning.

If you’ve watched the streaming video that other newspapers and Web sites have put out, you’ll have a good idea of what to expect at 10 am ET today: Something that approximates the form of cable news, but with Webbier sensibilities and production values.

But HuffPost Live will stand out from the stuff you’ve seen from the likes of Politico, the New York Times and The Wall Street Journal (which, like this Web site, is owned by News Corp.), in a couple ways.

For starters, the site’s interface will look a lot different from its peers. Yes, you’ll still see talking heads, talking. But you’ll also see a lot of bells and whistles designed to highlight and encourage comments from viewers, including a “join this segment” feature that is supposed to let people chime in live via Webcam.

HuffPost Live will also spend a lot of time … live. While many of its competitors spend some time streaming live, HuffPo will be showing 12 hours of live programming a day, and HuffPost Live head Roy Sekoff thinks he can ramp that up to 16 hours next year. Still, most of HuffPost Live’s traffic will likely come from Web surfers who find clips after the fact.

And while lots of other news operations are tackling Web video by hiring a few producers and tech experts, then asking their existing staff to stand in front of a camera, HuffPo has bet big on this launch, with a staff of 100. You’ll see existing HuffPo talent on the screen from time to time, but almost everyone working on the video show has joined the company in recent months.

Here’s an edited version of an interview I conducted with Sekoff last week, as his team was putting its finishing touches on the new channel.

Kafka: There are a lot of news sites trying to do some kind of video programming now. But none of them are throwing 100 people at it. Why go this big?

Sekoff: I felt like I wanted to do something that was disruptive. You can go down the list, of all the people who are doing [web video], and it all looks the same — television not done very well. That wasn’t of interest. I just didn’t think we could be disruptive by doing the same thing — shooting editorial meetings, or shooting the newsroom with a reporter coming in and just chatting.

And you’re stressing the live component, and especially live commenting, much more than anyone else, too.

We want the community to be very involved, front and center. We want them to be an integral part of our programming, not an afterthought. Not “We have this expert, and we have that person Skyped in, and oh, John in Wyoming … sorry, we don’t have time for you, John.”

The only way to do that is if you’re live, in real time. Because you can’t get people to join you [otherwise]. You can’t do call-in radio on tape delay.

But like everyone else who does video, most of the views you’ll get won’t be from people watching live, right?

In order to join us live, we have to be live. [But] the other part of our business is very much on video-on-demand.

People want premium video content. How can you create a tremendous amount of video content at scale? [This] is actually a very cost effective way. That’s one of the reasons we’re doing the 12 hours. We want to be there when things are happening [and] we want to be able to churn out material. Every time we do a live segment, we’re clipping. We’re taking the best things that come up, and we’re embedding them in HuffPost stories.

So on-demand drives views and dollars. And you’ll also have live, which is a nice option.

Exactly.

With AOL Set to Report Q2 Earnings Tomorrow, Tim Armstrong's Feeling Closer to Fine (Video)

Kara Swisher — Wed, 25 Jul 2012 01:34:29 +0000

When I was in New York last week, I got a chance to sit down with AOL CEO Tim Armstrong, the former not-Marissa-Mayer Googler, to talk about how it’s going in his thankless efforts to turn the New York-based Internet company around.

Unlike Mayer, who is just getting started at fixing what ails Yahoo, Armstrong has been at the job for some time now and finally seems to be getting some traction.

He talked about that and more in a video interview with me (which we did at Manhattan media-maven lunch spot Michael’s), including how it’s going with his always watchable acquisition of the Huffington Post and its eponymous founder Arianna Huffington.

Armstrong was feeling upbeat due to recent improvements in AOL’s business, as well as the lucrative sale of some patents and a victory over an activist shareholder proxy battle.

But, as usual, investors will need to focus on AOL’s performance, which will be on display in the morning when it reports its second-quarter earnings tomorrow at 5 am PT.

AOL beat expectations by 11 percent in the last quarter and Wall Street analysts expect the company to earn 10 cents per share, which has been guided down recently.

Still, because of all the recent good news, AOL’s stock has been up 82 percent since the beginning of the year, although it did drop 1.6 percent this past week.

Also important to tomorrow’s report is whether AOL can stem persistent revenue decreases in this quarter. Analysts are now expecting revenue of nearly $519 million for the period.

Here’s Armstrong chatting about the possibility that he can finally say that his long-suffering turnaround is actually turning:

[ See post to watch video ]

HuffPost Prepares for Video Launch

Keach Hagey — Tue, 10 Jul 2012 15:30:20 +0000

As the Huffington Post prepares for an Aug. 13 launch of its full-day online video network, it is hoping to tap a fast-growing advertising market by offering marketers something akin to sports naming rights in addition to traditional online video ads.

The new network, whose launch comes shortly after Huffington Post started a digital magazine, is the most ambitious expansion by the website since it was acquired by AOL Inc. last year. HuffPost Live, whose main studio will be in New York, will run 12 hours every weekday, with highlights after hours and on weekends. Huffington Post’s editor in chief Arianna Huffington has hired a 100-person newsroom for the network, including veterans from ABC, CNN and al-Jazeera English.

Read the rest of this post on the original site »

Huffington's Role Shrinks at AOL

Keach Hagey — Fri, 04 May 2012 12:00:01 +0000

Arianna Huffington acknowledged Thursday that her portfolio at AOL Inc. is being scaled back to include only the Huffington Post, undoing a structure put in place when her Web site was acquired by AOL last year.

After buying the Huffington Post for $315 million, AOL gave Ms. Huffington editorial oversight of all its properties, including tech-news site TechCrunch, the patch.com network of local news sites, MovieFone and MapQuest. In addition, more than 30 AOL properties, such as Politics Daily, were absorbed by the Huffington Post.

Read the rest of this post on the original site »

16 Things About Arianna Huffington

Beth Callaghan — Wed, 02 May 2012 19:53:20 +0000

Asa Mathat | AllThingsD

So how does a Pulitzer Prize-winning media mogul like Arianna Huffington stay on top of her game? Apparently it helps to be an advocate not just for truth in journalism, but also for a better night’s sleep. Below, Arianna continues last week’s trend of relating more than Ten Things About Me.

What was your favorite TV show as a kid?
Growing up in Greece, we had a little black-and-white TV, so I spent most of my time playing outside — it’s the ultimate reality show.

What qualities do you like in a person?
Empathy, fearlessness and humor.

What qualities do you dislike?
Multitasking — i.e., having dinner with someone and engaging with someone else on one of your devices.

What’s the single most important issue in the world today?
Being hyperconnected to everything and everyone, but disconnected from ourselves.

What would you be doing if you were not in your current job?
Trying to start up some other version of it.

What is your greatest achievement to date?
My two daughters.

iPhone, Android or BlackBerry?
BlackBerrys (four, to be precise). And oh, dear God, can someone please save BlackBerry?

If you could meet any historical or fictional person, who would it be?
William Shakespeare. On his birthday last week, I tweeted my feelings about him: “Whoever you were, there’s never been anyone like you.” And hardly a day goes by when we don’t unknowingly quote him.

What site/app do you check first when you wake up?
That’s not fair … HuffPost, of course.

Do you have a dog or cat or other pet?
I once shared ownership of a dog with my daughter Isabella. The dog was Oliver Pistachio Huffington, and it was shorter than its name.

What’s your favorite mode of transportation?
I love trains.

What was the last book you read?
“What Money Can’t Buy,” by Michael J. Sandel.

Name your favorite guilty pleasure.
A single-shot Venti cappuccino with 2 percent milk and a green straw, followed by a second single-shot Venti cappuccino with 2 percent milk and a green straw, followed by a third …

What do you drive/ride?
A Toyota Prius.

Who was your biggest influence growing up?
My mother. She gave me unconditional love and unconventional wisdom. And the belief that if her children didn’t eat every 20 minutes, something terrible would happen to them.

Describe an ideal day.
An ideal day is any day that follows a good eight-hour sleep.

Two Years and $33 Million Later, Start-Up Investor Lerer Ventures Starts Building Its Own Companies

Peter Kafka — Thu, 05 Apr 2012 14:02:49 +0000

A couple of years ago, Ken Lerer and his son Ben put together an investment fund that concentrates on early-stage start-ups. Which means they were doing the same thing that lots of other well-off, well-connected guys have been doing for the last couple years.

At the time, the Lerers’ pitch was that they were different because they were primarily focused on New York-area companies, and that’s still true.

But now they’re starting to carve out a new niche for themselves by actually building some homegrown companies, too.

These come in two flavors. Some are full-blown start-ups where they are taking on a hands-on role, like YouTube channel programmer Bedrocket Media, or the new video news start-up they aren’t saying much about yet.

The other ones are “service” companies they are helping launch, with the notion that they’ll help their other portfolio companies with functions like PR and marketing.

One thread connecting a lot of these ventures: People who have spent time at the Huffington Post.

The PR company, for instance, is run by Mario Ruiz, who until recently was HuffPo’s head flack. Former Huffington Post social media editor Rob Fishman is running Kingfish Labs with the Lerers’s backing. Former Huffington Post CTO Paul Berry is running both Soho Tech Labs, a sandbox for super-early-stage start-ups, and Rebel Mouse, his own mysterious social media thingamabob that will launch in the next month or so. Etc.

All of which makes perfect sense, since Ken Lerer was a Huffington Post co-founder, and his partner, Eric Hippeau, was HuffPo’s CEO until AOL acquired the site a year ago.

Still, you wonder if AOL CEO Tim Armstrong considered the fact that some of the $315 million he spent on HuffPo last year would end up reinvested in start-ups populated by HuffPo employees — in the building that used that used to house HuffPo itself.

In any case, now that Lerer Ventures is a couple of years into this — they’ve raised $33 million so far, and have invested in 100 start-ups — it seems like a good time to check in on them.

Here’s a video interview with Hippeau and Ben Lerer, where they talk about their philosophy, portfolio and the possibility of raising yet another fund. (Extra features, free of charge: Something off-camera that seemed to occupy Lerer’s attention, as well as some bona fide New York City audio interference at the end.)

[ See post to watch video ]

(Image courtesy of Shutterstock/irin-k)

Unpaid Huffington Post Bloggers Remain Unpaid

Peter Kafka — Fri, 30 Mar 2012 20:43:32 +0000

Turns out you can’t give away your work, then demand to get paid after the fact.

What? You already knew this? Then you were ahead of the U.S. judicial system, which had to spend the last year on a silly class-action suit brought by a former Huffington Post contributor.

Jonathan Tasini, who compared himself and other unpaid HuffPo writers to “modern-day slaves,” was demanding a third of the $315 million Arianna Huffington and her backers got when they sold the company to AOL last year. The logic: He helped build the site up, and, well …

Not really any more logic than that, really. Tasini and other contributors agreed to write for free from the get-go.

U.S. District Judge John Koeltl has a 24-page decision dismissing Tasini’s complaint with prejudice, and I’ve embedded it at the bottom of this post. But I’m not suggesting you read it. Here’s the common-sense essence:

No one forced the plaintiffs to give their work to The Huffington Post for publication and the plantiffs candidly admit that they did not expect compensation … Quite simply, the plaintiffs offered a service and the defendants offered exposure in return, and the transaction occurred exactly as advertised.

Any questions? Right. So here’s the Red Hot Chili Peppers:

huffington post blogging case

HuffPost PR Guy Escapes HuffPost for New Gig Repping … the HuffPost

Kara Swisher — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 11:06:12 +0000

Huffington Post communications head Mario Ruiz has certainly had one of the busiest jobs in online media over the last five years, as the news blog has grown into a global content powerhouse. Now he’s starting his own agency and his first big get is … the Huffington Post. Ruiz has been tireless in repping the AOL-owned site and its eponymous creator Arianna Huffington — and that is apparently not going to stop, even with a lovely new logo.

Huffington Post Tech Boss Leaves AOL, For Real

Peter Kafka — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 23:42:54 +0000

Paul Berry, one of the key players in the Huffington Post’s rocket rise, is leaving AOL, the company that bought the aggregator/news site for $315 million.

Berry, who had been Huffpo’s chief technical officer, stepped back from day-to-day duties in November; at the time, the company said he’d be “working closely” with Arianna Huffington “on strategy and expansion priorities.”

Now Berry says he will be leaving in February — which happens to be a year after the AOL/Huffpo deal was announced. Berry will be working on Rebel Mouse, which he described to the New York Observer as a “social platform,” and will also work on a start-up incubator.

As the Observer notes, the move will reunite Berry with a good chunk of Huffpo’s senior team — co-founders Ken Lerer and Jonah Peretti, former CEO Eric Hippeau and former ad chief Greg Coleman. Most of that group left Huffpo as soon as the AOL deal closed.

Peretti, who now runs Buzzfeed, a son-of-Huffpo aggregator/news site with a flair for social media, credited Berry with much of Huffpo’s success, via a Twitter blessing:

When Paul Berry joined HuffPost had 3M UVs, today the site has 120M million & he deserves LOTS of credit for that growth

— Jonah Peretti (@peretti) January 10, 2012

[Shutterstock/Kutlayev Dmitry]

BermanBraun to Launch Three Non-HuffPost Sites -- Including Weather -- for AOL

Kara Swisher — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 16:27:24 +0000

In a deal that was struck some time ago and is close to fruition, BermanBraun is prepping three major Web properties for AOL that will focus on pets, men and, interestingly, the weather.

After I inquired, AOL confirmed that the Hollywood production company — headed by former Yahoo and ABC exec Lloyd Braun and former Paramount exec Gail Berman — will debut the trio of sites around March. The new sites will use rich features and a slick design to attract premium advertisers.

The pair will jointly sell the advertising, but the sites themselves will be operated by BermanBraun in cooperation with AOL’s media unit, the Huffington Post Media Group. The deal was struck in late 2010, before AOL bought the Huffington Post for $300 million in January of this year.

While AOL has partnered with many outside sites, this will be the most prominent one since that acquisition.

Since then, much of the new content development on AOL has been aimed at drastically increasing the number of sites with that brand. There have been more than two dozen of those since March.

In this case, the Huffington Post Media Group, run by Arianna Huffington, has typically either created new topic sites or relaunched old AOL ones.

This week, for example, the company rejiggered AOL TV as HuffPost TV, as well as announcing El Huffington Post, an international Spanish-language version of the Huffington Post that will debut in early 2012, in partnership with El País.

The BermanBraun effort, though, is more independent and large-scale. It will feature extensive video and heavy use of imagery. Huffington Post will be involved in editorial selection, and has been working closely with the firm on incorporating social elements.

“It’s been a very dynamic and collaborative partnership — we’ve worked together on everything from design to picking the editors,” said Roy Sekoff, founding editor of the Huffington Post Media Group, about the arrangement. “BermanBraun brings a distinctive approach to their sites, and we’ve helped infuse that with our focus on real-time, social, and building community.”

Sekoff declined to give more details, such as the names of the sites. (They won’t be HuffPost Pets, HuffPost Weather and HuffPost Dudes, though!)

Pets could be a strong category if done in a new way, especially if designed with new tablet devices in mind. And weather, to my mind, is a sleeper category if reimagined freshly.

BermanBraun — which also develops television shows and movies — has a lot of experience in the online content arena. It has previously created Web sites for Microsoft’s MSN unit, including the high-profile celebrity site Wonderwall.

It will be interesting to see how the collaboration turns out. In the meantime, here’s my favorite weather song — Lena Horne rules! — to enjoy until the three sites launch:

HuffPost and TED Will Ring Out the Year With an Online Idea-Thon

Kara Swisher — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 16:20:13 +0000

Two of the more interesting online media properties are apparently joining up for a year-end online idea festival.

The AOL-owned Huffington Post, and TED, the massive conference organization and online site dedicated to its offerings, will jointly feature 18 of the best onstage speeches from TED’s excellent year-round global events.

The idea-thon will be called “Best of TED 2011: A Countdown of 18 Groundbreaking Ideas to Reshape the World in 2012.” A post on the Huffington Post site noted that it will feature the popular TEDTalks and combine them with “new blog posts written by the people who delivered them, examining how their ideas were impacted by being shared with a global audience.”

Out of a total of 300 possible choices, the number of speeches has been narrowed down to 18, because TEDTalks are limited to no more than 18 minutes. The talks range over a wide array of topic areas, including science, art, music, tech and more.

In an interview today, HuffPost majordomo Arianna Huffington said that the aim was to spur thinking around big problems the world faces.

“We are trying to be people to rethink everything in a super engaging way,” she said. “That is what TED is famous for and we wanted to shed a lot of light on it.”

Here’s today’s, with game developer Kevin Slavin on “How Algorithms Shape Our World”:

Viral Video: SNL Honors Steve Jobs (Sort Of)

Kara Swisher — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 07:31:46 +0000

This did not make it onto “Saturday Night Live” last weekend, but it is still very funny — a mock interview by Charlie Rose of Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, the Huffington Post’s Arianna Huffington, Reed Hastings of Netflix and the world’s oldest “mean girl,” Rupert Murdoch of News Corp., all talking about Apple’s Steve Jobs.

Heh:

HuffPost at One Biiiilllliiion Monthly Page Views: More Buying, More Launching, More Hiring

Kara Swisher — Mon, 03 Oct 2011 08:15:40 +0000

The Huffington Post Media Group, which says it has topped one billion page views for the month of August, has bought an online grassroots platform called Localocracy.

The price for the site, whose key execs will join the AOL content unit, is under $1 million, said sources close to the situation.

The HuffPost also announced it was hiring Lisa Belkin from the New York Times to be a senior columnist covering parenting and family issues.

The latest hiring and purchase are part of a number of moves at the news and blog site, which has been frantically expanding its offerings since it was acquired by AOL.

That now includes four more sections launching this week — Huff/Post50; HuffPost Gay Voices; HuffPost Weddings; and HuffPost High School — bringing the grand total of new sites to 21 since the Huffington Post officially merged with AOL in March.

“We want to launch sections for every interest and passion our readers have.” said HuffPost head Arianna Huffington in an interview yesterday. “Whatever your interest, we want to provide the latest content and stories and most advanced tools for engagement.”

And, presumably, get the most traffic from it all. Along with the record one billion page views, the site also said it had 37 million unique visitors in August, the largest number it has posted yet, with 5.1 million comments.

Here’s the official press release for the whole kitchen-sink shebang:

The Huffington Post Media Group Makes Key Announcements:

Acquires Localocracy, Pioneering Online Grassroots Platform, and Hires its
Leadership Team: Conor White-Sullivan, Aaron Soules and Jay Boice

Launches Four Huffington Post Sections This Week: Huff/Post50, with Rita Wilson as Editor-at-Large; HuffPost Gay Voices; HuffPost Weddings; and HuffPost High School; Group is latest of 21 new sites since The Huffington Post Merged with AOL in March

Hires Lisa Belkin from The New York Times as Senior Columnist
Covering Parenting, Work/Life Balance, and Family

Announces Record Huffington Post Size and Engagement, with Largest Number of UVs and Comments Ever, and Site Topping 1 Billion Page Views for First Time

New York, NY — October 3, 2011 – The Huffington Post Media Group (“HPMG”), a leading source of news, opinion, entertainment, community and digital information, today makes several key announcements: (1) HPMG is acquiring Localocracy, a groundbreaking online engagement platform enabling citizens to solve problems in their communities, and its founders, Conor White-Sullivan and Aaron Soules, and technology lead, Jay Boice, are joining the Huffington Post Media Group to work on the intersection of editorial and technology, and deepen the sites’ engagement with users; (2) The Huffington Post (“HuffPost”) is launching four sites this week; today, Huff/Post50, with Rita Wilson as editor-at-large; HuffPost Gay Voices; and HuffPost Weddings; tomorrow, HuffPost High School. They are the latest of 21 new verticals since The Huffington Post merged with AOL in March; (4) Lisa Belkin is joining HPMG as Senior Columnist from The New York Times, where she wrote the “Motherlode” blog. She’ll be covering parenting, work/life balance and family; and (5) HuffPost has recently achieved record size and engagement, with its largest number of UVs ever, 37MM*, and greatest number of monthly comments, 5.1MM. In an important milestone, the site also surpassed 1 billion page views for the first time.*

“I’m delighted to announce that Conor White-Sullivan, Aaron Soules and Jay Boice are joining our team,” said Arianna Huffington. “They’re pioneers in using the web to empower citizens to improve their towns, and their unique vision and talents will enable us to deepen our users’ engagement with our sites. We’re also excited to be launching HuffPost/50, HuffPost Gay Voices, HuffPost Weddings and HuffPost High School, the latest sections in our continued effort to provide content, community and a platform for expression for our readers’ every interest and passion. We’re also thrilled to welcome Lisa Belkin, who has built a large following with her writing on parenting and work/life balance issues, and who is a leader in online community building. She’ll be launching her ‘Parentlode’ blog on October 17th.”

Creating and Nurturing Online Communities to Make Lives Better

Localocracy was founded in Amherst, Massachusetts, in 2009 as an online forum encouraging citizens to engage in local issues, share concerns and opinions, and rank problem-solving ideas. Its goal was to surface problems and employ the power of persuasion to spotlight solutions to issues big and small. At HPMG, founders White-Sullivan and Soules will build on their innovative approach to enhancing local democracy while leveraging HPMG’s powerful online community platform to engage its large and networked audience. Also joining the Group from Localocracy is Jay Boice, who will be instrumental in building new technologies to support enhanced online community interaction.

Said Conor and Soules: “What we’ve learned with Localocracy is that by harnessing user-generated content, we’re able to unleash a lot of people power. Our methodology is simple: we believe that everyone is an expert about something, so we want to give voice to that expertise and allow an exchange of ideas for all to see and participate in. We’re excited to be teaming up with The Huffington Post Media Group, a leader in social news and user engagement, and look forward to pushing the boundaries of what can be done when combining journalism and technology for the common good.”

Four New Sites; Four New Communities

The Huffington Post Media Group announces today the launch of four destination sites: Huff/Post50 (www.huffingtonpost.com/50), HuffPost Gay Voices (www.huffingtonpost.com/gay-voices) and HuffPost Weddings (www.huffingtonpost/weddings). Each offers HuffPost’s unique combination of real-time news and opinion, and passionate communities powered by a leading social news platform.

HuffPost/50 — whose Editor-at-Large is actress, producer and writer Rita Wilson — covers the challenges, complexities and joys facing the boomer generation, now 77 million people strong. It spotlights boomers who fearlessly tackle new challenges in the spirit of reinventing themselves, regardless of age, and encourages boomers to question conventional wisdom about aging. Topics being covered include: longevity, relationships and sex, politics, the intense “sandwich” pressure of simultaneously taking care of aging parents and children, retirement, spirituality and religion, friendship, politics and dying.

The site is meant to be thought-provoking yet also humorous and life-affirming, and while encouraging boomers to seize the present, Huff/Post50 welcomes reflection and the sharing of hard-earned wisdom. The site is a rare platform for people 50 and older who want to share what’s on their minds. Bloggers on the section include: Bill Maher, ABC News’ Christiane Amanpour, and musicians Ann and Nancy Wilson.

Said Rita Wilson: “The idea that we boomers are somehow supposed to wind things down as we get older completely escapes me. Exploring the minds and hearts of this group of people is exciting. It’s never too late to mix things up, change your life, to get to what you really should be doing — or want to be doing. As Mark Twain said, ‘Age is an issue of mind over matter. If you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter.’”

HuffPost High School, launching tomorrow, is a place for teens to engage with one another about what’s really happening in their lives — socially, academically, and culturally. The site features some of the nation’s top high school journalists and is a dynamic platform for teen bloggers. It’s a go-to guide for everything teens care about, from college prep, the nuances of social networking, culture, and celebrity gossip to high school sports, comedy, politics, the prom and beyond.

HuffPost Gay Voices, also launching today, covers the complexities of the LGBT community, from family and faith to politics and sexuality. The section covers news, culture, and trends, and offers opinion that spotlights all matters of interest to the LGBT community. The site fearlessly looks at powerful yet silent influences on identity and relationships, such as class, race and religion. HuffPost Gay Voices features everything from travel, style and entertainment to politics, personalities and health. Launch week bloggers include Christine Quinn, Margaret Cho and Bruce Vilanch. The Human Rights Campaign is Gay Voices’ inaugural sponsor.

HuffPost Weddings, the third section launching today, has comprehensive coverage of weddings and marriage from all angles, from untraditional wedding cakes and exotic dream honeymoons, to the more practical, including tips on navigating the world of wedding planners, contemporary wedding etiquette, and more. The site will spark discussions about everything from managing the family politics of inter-faith ceremonies and the nuances of gay weddings to the latest proposal video gone viral. And while HuffPost Weddings is meant as a one-stop-shop of advice with a supportive community for those planning their weddings, it also appeals to a wider audience interested in the culture and mores of modern weddings planning, weddings, and marriage. Bloggers on the site include: Heidi Klum; Kelly Meyer; celebrity wedding planners Mindy Weiss, Sharon Sacks, Preston Bailey, and Colin Cowie; designers Nanette Lepore, Angel Sanchez, Reem Acra; and more.

Rapid HuffPost Expansion; Record Audience and Engagement

The Huffington Post’s rapid expansion has only intensified following its merger with AOL in March. The site recorded its largest number of unique visitors per month last month — 37 million* — and also surpassed 1 billion page views for the first time. In addition, HuffPost’s engaged community continues to grow, posting a record 5.1 million comments in August.

With the four sites launching this week, HuffPost will have debuted 21 sections since the merger, all listed here:

• Huff/Post50
• HuffPost BlackVoices
• HuffPost Canada
• HuffPost Canada Living
• HuffPost Celebrity
• HuffPost Culture
• HuffPost Gay Voices
• HuffPost High School
• HuffPost LatinoVoices
• HuffPost Locals: San Francisco, D.C
• HuffPost Parents
• HuffPost San Francisco
• HuffPost Small Business
• HuffPost Travel
• HuffPost UK
• HuffPost UK Tech
• HuffPost UK Universities & Education
• HuffPost Women
• StyleList
• StyleList Home

(*comScore, Aug. 2011)

Culture Clashes Tear at AOL

Jessica E. Vascellaro and Emily Sweet — Sat, 10 Sep 2011 07:17:02 +0000

The current clash between Arianna Huffington and Michael Arrington over management of the TechCrunch blog is a public flashpoint in the ongoing drama over the fate of AOL Inc.

But it belies a deeper problem the company is grappling with: a culture of clashing fiefs and personalities created by a rapid series of acquisitions that haven’t jelled, according to a dozen current and former employees.

Read the rest of this post on the original site »

Viral Video: I Finally Get the Taiwan Treatment -- Paintballing the CrunchFund Wizard

Kara Swisher — Wed, 07 Sep 2011 20:16:50 +0000

I cannot express my delight at finally getting to appear in a CGI news video by Next Media Animation, in a segment about the CrunchFund controversy.

In it, the New York Times’ David Carr and I attack TechCrunch editor Michael Arrington with paintball guns. He is wearing a green wizard outfit.

Later, a flaming Arianna Huffington and AOL CEO Tim Armstrong make an appearance.

Yes, it is that kind of video.

Enjoy:

HuffPo Hires Google Engineer Dierks

Kara Swisher — Wed, 07 Sep 2011 15:08:43 +0000

AOL’s media arm, the Huffington Post Media Group, has hired longtime Google techie Tim Dierks to oversee its growing programming engineering team as SVP of engineering.

Dierks founded and developed Google Checkout, among other things, at the search giant. He has been there since 2004, based in New York.

The fast-growing media and news site has added a lot of content to its offerings since selling to AOL, including merging a variety of sections and overhauling others.

Here’s the official press release from HPMG, which is announcing the move today:

The AOL Huffington Post Media Group Names Google’s Tim Dierks Senior Vice President of Engineering

Noted Software Engineer Who Oversaw Multiple Teams and Founded and Developed “Google Checkout” to Oversee Group’s Expanding Engineering Team

New York, NY — September 7, 2011 – The AOL Huffington Post Media Group, a leading source of news, opinion, entertainment, community and digital information, announces today that Tim Dierks, Software Engineering Manager at Google, has been named Senior Vice President of Engineering. In this position, he will be responsible for overseeing the group’s expanding programming team. Dierks is an acclaimed software engineer who oversaw multiple engineering teams at Google and founded and developed the company’s innovative Google Checkout offering. The announcement was made by Arianna Huffington, President and Editor-in-Chief of the AOL Huffington Post Media Group; Paul Berry, Chief Technology Officer of the AOL Huffington Post Media Group; and Alexander Gounares, Chief Technology Officer of AOL.

“I’m delighted to welcome Tim to our team,” said Arianna Huffington. “In addition to having a track record of successfully leading large programming teams focused on work that’s complex, fast moving and diverse, he’s also a creative force adept at seeing his vision through to completion. Tim shares our passion for constantly improving the user experience, and I look forward to adding his ideas, insight, and knowledge to the AOL HPMG mix.”

Said Paul Berry: “We’re continuing to build a premier editorial, engineering and product group, and Tim Dierks — a rare combination of effective leader and innovative thinker –- is an incredible addition to oversee our talented and hard working team of programmers.”

Tim Dierks joined Google NYC in 2004. At the company, he has worked on internal security systems, used his “20%” time to found Google Checkout, an online payment processing service, and led engineering teams working on many different initiatives, including AdSense for Feeds, Television and Print, and FeedBurner.

In his position leading a team building internal-facing applications for the company, he managed his group’s existing software programs, oversaw the building of innovative new products, and introduced a broader set of engineering tools, including broader outsourcing and software purchasing. He also built and led a research and development team in New York that focused on TV advertising audiences, which led to the development of a “bid on and buy your audience” sales offering. Prior roles at the company included leading the newspaper ads and publisher content engineering teams.

Said Dierks: “The AOL Huffington Post Media Group offers a wide range of great content and compelling social engagement. I look forward to working with Paul Berry and the AOL Huffington Post Media Group team to continue building technology to enable and drive this terrific platform.”

Said Alexander Gounares: “Technology innovation is fundamental to AOL’s products and services, so it’s fabulous to have a noted technologist like Tim joining the team. Across the breadth of AOL technologies, we are building a world class organization of top notch talent using the latest state of the art tools. Tim brings a wealth of knowledge, experience, and leadership with him, and I am looking forward to working with him.”

Give Me Back My Baby: Michael Arrington Trying to Buy Back TechCrunch From AOL -- But Would AOL Sell It?

Kara Swisher — Tue, 06 Sep 2011 18:57:26 +0000

Here’s another interesting wrinkle to the ongoing saga of AOL, TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington and his nascent venture firm, CrunchFund.

Since the controversy erupted last week, Arrington has reached out to AOL CEO Tim Armstrong, as well as others in Silicon Valley, about buying back his popular tech news site.

Sources said Arrington needs funding to do so — irony alert! — and told them over the weekend that he planned to use his blogging bully pulpit to force AOL into giving up the site it bought for more than $25 million almost exactly a year ago.

But sources said — at this point — AOL is not inclined to sell the site, which has prompted Arrington to pen a blog post on TechCrunch, not-meant-as-a-joke-titled “Editorial Independence,” suggesting they do so.

Quelle surprise!

We’ve proposed two options to Aol.

1. Reaffirmation of the editorial independence promised at the time of acquisition. Given the current circumstances, that means autonomy from Huffington Post, unfettered editorial independence and a blanket right to editorial self determination. To put it simply, TechCrunch would stay with Aol but would be independent of the Huffington Post.

or

2. Sell TechCrunch back to the original shareholders.

Arrington used an image of the Spartans from, I think, the movie “300,” on the post. Memo to Mike: All the Spartans died in the end, however valiant. It goes without saying — this situation is not valiant and you are definitely not King Leonidas.

“It is at a stalemate, so this is the result,” said one person with knowledge of the pugnacious effort by Arrington to take back his baby.

Which, of course, he sold in the first place.

AOL has stated it will not allow Arrington to remain its editor or have “influence on coverage” while also doing a venture fund.

Thus, some of Arrington’s staffers, such as M.G. Siegler, have already been plowing the ground ahead of Arrington’s post.

Siegler, for example, penned a weepy diatribe about how unfair it all is and how different the site operates from slow-footed meanies at big media organizations such as the New York Times. The Times strafed Arrington in a David Carr column yesterday.

Wrote Siegler, in what can only be described as soap-opera fantastic: “TechCrunch is on the precipice. As soon as tomorrow, Mike may be thrown out of the company he founded. Or he may not. No one knows.”

Tune in tomorrow to see if AOL’s content chief and Arrington boss Arianna Huffington will use that gun in her pocket. Or will she use the razor-chiseled cheekbones of Armstrong to slice her new nemesis?

(Alls I can say to add to what I have already said, at this point: Good lord. But, wait, isn’t there a TechCrunch Disrupt conference next week to hawk and make it all about Arrington and not the entrepreneurs? This explains everything!)

While Siegler is trying to make it all sound as if it is so very unfair, since the site is presumably so very special, AllThingsD operates in a similar quick-edit way to TechCrunch — where I will underscore there are some terrific journalists.

But — because it is simply flat-out wrong on every possible scale — neither Walt Mossberg nor I would ever consider being editors of the site while also running a venture fund.

(In fact, it is now a standing rule at ATD that, if we ever did such an unthinkable thing — which of course we never would — our writers tell us we stink rather than praise us.)

Meanwhile, we’ll be busy breaking some actual tech news on this site, like here and here and here, while TechCrunch presumably faux-burns and AOL fiddles.

Mike Arrington, AOL Employee, Won't Have "Influence on Coverage," Says AOL

Peter Kafka — Fri, 02 Sep 2011 14:58:05 +0000

You thought a story about Mike Arrington would be clean and easy? Ha.

So here’s the latest (for those just tuning in, we’ll do backstory later — who said the inverted triangle was dead?):

TechCrunch’s Mike Arrington is no longer working for AOL’s Huffington Post Media Group, but he remains employed by AOL. He’ll be running his new CrunchFund as part of the company’s AOL Ventures arm, says Maureen Sullivan, who runs AOL corporate communications.

That’s consistent with what the company said yesterday, but contradicts what AOL HuffingtonPost spokesman Mario Ruiz told the Business Insider this morning. But since Sullivan reports directly to AOL CEO Tim Armstrong, we’ll take her word on this.

Sullivan also says that Arrington is no longer officially working for TechCrunch, the powerful tech Web site he built, then sold to AOL last year. That also syncs up with the official line from yesterday. AOL will hire a new managing editor, but Arrington will keep his “founding editor” title, and will continue to write for the site, but will need to disclose conflicts of interest when he does so, etc.

Again, no change. So really, the only question is: What kind of influence and input will Arrington have on TechCrunch when he’s not writing? Here this gets sticky, and it doesn’t look like it will ever be unsticky.

Sullivan says that Arrington’s relationship with TechCrunch is “still to be determined, and it’s important to make sure that Arianna [Huffington] is super comfortable with that relationship … I think that everyone is going to be very careful that there isn’t influence on coverage.”

Just to be clear about it, Sullivan called me back a while later to reiterate the same points. “Michael is now a professional investor working for AOL. He will have no editorial control.”

Hear that, CrunchFund investors? The guy you are handing $20 million to won’t be able to influence the way TechCrunch interacts with your companies, your investments and your potential investments. Is that what you signed on for?

Now, one last compare and contrast exercise. Here’s Greylock Partners Reid Hoffman’s rationale for investing in the CrunchFund, via Kara Swisher’s story this morning:

“Techcrunch will get some real deal flow from entrepreneurs that we would otherwise not see, because they have established a prominent position as the SV/Tech industry information feed. As many tech entrepreneurs read it — both within Silicon Valley and globally — and view the information news feed to be their target for announcing themselves to the world, Crunchfund will have access to deal flow to these diverse and early stage companies. Some of these companies will be the kind of early stage companies with billion-dollar potential that Greylock invests in.”

It’d be great to hear from the principals on this, so I’ve dutifully pinged Arrington, Huffington and Armstrong. But my hunch is that some of them, at least, will be mum for a bit. More later! I bet!