It’s not a big surprise that the giant and perpetual-motion online news site would do this.

After all, in the new age of media, newspaper Web sites are turning more toward streaming and on-demand video, attempting to take text-driven reporting and present it in rich, feed-it-to-me news packages.

But whether consumers want to tune in on schedule or call up news videos when they feel like watching is still up for debate.

In the HuffPost’s case, the video will be streamed to its flagship site, as well as to other AOL Web sites.

Jeff Bercovici of Forbes had the scoop on this a couple weeks ago, laying out Arianna Huffington’s ambitions to meet the increasing demand — at least, on the part of advertisers — for good video content.

Ambitious is probably the right word, since the Huffington Post and AOL plan to stream 12 hours a day, five days a week, with eight hours of content produced in New York and the rest out of Los Angeles.

Eventually, Huffington Post founding editor Roy Sekoff said that the network is aiming to reach 16 hours a day of live daily programming. With 2012 elections looming, the network will also feature lots of political reporters from Washington, he added.

The plan will also be costly — with the AOL media unit putting a hundred employees behind the streaming video effort, culling from the current HuffPost-AOL editorial staff of 320, as well as new hires with video-specific skills.

Will it work?

There’s little question that Web video viewing is on the rise. According to a 2011 Nielsen report, U.S. consumers now spend an average of four hours and 20 minutes per month watching video on the Web, an hour and 10 minutes more than the amount they watched in early 2010.

But Huffington and Sekoff believe that, despite the fact the HuffPost is mirroring the cable TV model and a lot of the programming will be live, consumers still aren’t all that interested in watching on a set schedule.

What Huffington Post is doing is not unlike what the Wall Street Journal Digital Network has been building over the last few years.

(Full disclosure: The WSJ, for those who aren’t aware, is owned by News Corp.’s Dow Jones, which also owns this Web site. I also previously worked at the WSJ’s video unit.)

Like WSJ’s video product, HuffPo will offer on-demand clips in addition to the live-streaming, deploying in-house staff as talent, plus Patch local reporters and sources in from the field using Skype video. It will also distribute the news video content on mobile phones and tablets.

The New York Times has also gotten into the streaming video game with its latest effort, Business Day Live, which launched yesterday.

Sekoff dismissed the idea that HuffPost was mimicking other news organizations, or even cable.

“No offense to the WSJ, but I think we got more comments this month than the WSJ did last year,” Sekoff said, referencing the more than six million comments on the main HuffPost site in January alone. “People don’t want to be talked to when they get their news; they want to converse with.”

And he said that HuffPost has no plans to become a cable TV network, although they’re open to potentially sharing the video content with interested networks. In terms of revenue generation, Huffington Post currently doesn’t have advertisers committed to the streaming network, but is seeking a handful of partners for launch.

Right now, there are no plans for a set schedule of programing, said Sekoff, because he feels that Web video consumers ultimately don’t care when the video is on.

“People don’t come home from work and say, ‘Oh it’s 9 pm, I think I’ll watch sports on the Web now,’” he said. “We just don’t think it’s there yet.”

Huffington concurred and said her own casual Internet video-watching habits — which include bouts of “Saturday Night Live,” Comedy Central and “The Good Wife” — reflect this.

“We don’t think Web video is about appointment-watching.” she said. “But just because people are watching Web video one way, doesn’t mean it’s the end of other kinds of consumption.”

For the past few months, the Huffington Post has been on a bit of a tear–both in terms of traffic gains and in its hiring of some big talent for key positions.

Now, those execs are focusing on using that consumer momentum to achieve what has eluded the Huffington Post thus far: Making some serious bank from the privately held news and media site.

How to help marketers to better understand the site and, therefore, spur this significant monetization will be his main focus at the Huffington Post, said Greg Coleman to BoomTown in an interview over the weekend.

Coleman–a former Yahoo (YHOO) advertising exec, as well as one for Time Warner (TWX) online unit AOL–was named president and chief revenue officer a month ago by Huffington Post’s new CEO, Eric Hippeau.

Hippeau, who was himself just appointed in June, is another well-known online media exec and has been a big investor and board member of the Huffington Post. (You can read a thorough interview by Staci Kramer with Hippeau on paidContent.)

“It’s important for advertisers to know how big we have gotten, while also highlighting this amazing audience of influencers we have gathered,” said Coleman, in his first media chitchat since taking on the job. “I think it is the beginning of a tipping point.”

Well, of course, Coleman would say that, as the guy looking to drum up interest among marketers in spending their money on the Huffington Post.

But stats seem to indicate that consumers are increasingly liking what the Huffington Post is creating, because it is starting to surpass some well-known media icons on the Web in traffic.

While more of this increase is going to be due to a socialization of the news–the Huffington Post has an aggressive deployment of Facebook Connect called HuffPost Social News–the growth is more about building a brand people trust and seek out.

According to recent reports from both comScore (SCOR) and Nielsen Online, for example, the site just became larger than several online brands of big media companies, such as the Washington Post (WPO), in terms of unique monthly visitors.

In its September report, Nielsen clocked the Huffington Post at 9.47 million uniques, up 26 percent, while the Post site was at 9.2 million–a drop of 30 percent.

According to the Nielsen, the Huffington Post is within spitting distance of USA Today’s Web site (9.9 million), a Gannett (GCI) property.

And, it is bigger than Hearst Newspapers Digital (7.9 million) and the BBC (7.2 million).

For September, comScore has the Huffington Post (at 6.83 million) besting the Post (6.77 million)–as well as WSJ.com (6.7 million), a unit of Dow Jones, which is owned by News Corp. (NWS).

(The Wall Street Journal site, to be fair, makes a chunk of its revenue from subscription fees, rather than relying solely on advertising from traffic like the Huffington Post. And full disclosure: Dow Jones owns this site.)

In any case, big traffic is key for most news sites, and internal numbers from Google (GOOG) Analytics that Huffington Post execs cite are higher, as is typical for most sites, pegging traffic at about 27 million monthly uniques with more than two million reader comments per month.

Huffington Post co-founder and blogging icon Arianna Huffington attributes the recent boost in traffic to the site’s proclivity to “start conversations” that interest readers, such as her recent suggestion that Vice President Joe Biden should resign.

“We are aiming to go beyond just facts, to create a narrative,” said Huffington, who thinks the speed of news helps attract visitors to the site. “We think bringing journalism to a new level is exactly what people are looking for.”

Perhaps. But, even if traffic increases continue to bear her theories out, she and others have said that the Huffington Post still has not been regularly profitable despite doubling annual revenue–mostly in advertising–to what some estimate to be about $8 million in 2009.

While the site is aiming to invest rather than focus too hard on showing profits, Coleman said he would like to make revenue seven times larger in the next years, building on the performance of the site to vaunt past old media giants online.

“This kind of thing is a milestone for the marketing community,” he said. “Our goal is to be the top Internet newspaper, and this points out that we are on our way.”

To do that, he will have to spend some of the $37 million in funding that the Huffington Post has raised from venture investors.

While the edit side is using the money to expand the number of news categories, Coleman said his focus will be on building a higher caliber team of sales and marketing execs with deeper relationships to big clients.

“Unlike selling an auto page on Yahoo (YHOO), our site has a more complex sales process that takes some time for people to understand,” said Coleman. “But once they get it, it should be an easier sale.”

Until then, check out the video of the entire interview I did at the seventh D: All Things Digital conference with Huffington and Washington Post publisher Katharine Weymouth in which they talk about the future of journalism and more:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20091020/as-traffic-booms-is-huffpo-ready-to-make-some-real-dough/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20081119/more-ceo-choices-for-yahoo-freston-jordan-bonnie-and-two-rosenblatts/ http://allthingsd.com/20081119/more-ceo-choices-for-yahoo-freston-jordan-bonnie-and-two-rosenblatts/#comments Wed, 19 Nov 2008 08:00:08 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=6705

BoomTown might have been remiss in my post yesterday on top candidates for the Yahoo CEO job, after the news Monday that Jerry Yang is stepping down, by leaving out several key possibilities.

Yesterday’s roster included News Corp.’s Peter Chernin, Google’s Tim Armstrong, Kevin Johnson of Juniper Networks (JNPR) and also two Yahoo board members, among others. (The main internal candidate, Yahoo President Sue Decker, seems unlikely to get the nod.)

So here is an addendum to my initial list–all of whom are Yahoo (YHOO) outsiders.

Tom Freston:

Chernin is not the only media mogul whose name is being bandied about–the other prominent one is former Viacom head Tom Freston.

Freston apparently got shafted by the–let’s be polite here–disturbingly volatile founder of Viacom (VIA), Sumner Redstone, for not buying MySpace. In fact, News Corp. (NWS), which also owns this Web site, did. But Freston remains a well-respected and creative exec and has been dabbling in the Internet space since leaving Viacom.

Also, Oprah and Arianna love Freston–which is all I need to know.

Jeff Jordan:

Jeff Jordan, the former top eBay (EBAY) exec who is now the CEO of OpenTable, was also on the short list for COO at Facebook, a job that went to former Google exec Sheryl Sandberg.

While the restaurant reservations Web start-up has been headed for a public offering, that event has obviously been pushed out indefinitely by the econalypse, which might be just the impetus to convince Jordan that bussing tables all day is too dull.

Some speculate that Yahoo could buy OpenTable and get Jordan in the process.

Richard Rosenblatt:

Another interesting idea is Richard Rosenblatt of Demand Media, a company that Yahoo was sniffing around not too long ago.

The network of social-networking sites and apps maker is an innovative play in the space and might give Yahoo some much needed Web 2.0 DNA. Demand could still be bought by Yahoo, in order to put Rosenblatt into place.

(Rosenblatt, for those who do not remember, ran the company that owned MySpace, and he was key to selling it to News Corp.)

Also, Lance Armstrong likes Rosenblatt.

Shelby Bonnie:

A reader actually made the excellent suggestion of former CNET head Shelby Bonnie, who is now investing in start-ups. Bonnie is another steady exec–despite leaving CNET, now owned by CBS (CBS), under an options backdating controversy–and is well-liked in the Internet industry.

Yahoo would be a much bigger job than he has ever held, although he certainly has both tech and advertising experience online.

David Rosenblatt:

Lastly, especially if Yahoo is interested in an exec who has turnaround talent, there is probably no better a choice than DoubleClick CEO David Rosenblatt. An experienced online advertising exec, he is also sharply outspoken and knows how to get companies in line and fast.

He is also impossibly rich after Google (GOOG) bought DoubleClick out from under–wait for it–Yahoo recently. While he is still running the show for Google, after having decided to stay, Yahoo might present an interesting challenge for the very savvy Rosenblatt.

Please see this disclosure related to me and Google.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20081119/more-ceo-choices-for-yahoo-freston-jordan-bonnie-and-two-rosenblatts/feed/ 3