In a bold and definitive move, AOL is paying $315 million, mostly in cash, to buy the Huffington Post, one of the Web’s most prominent news and opinion sites.

As part of the deal, Huffington Post co-founder Arianna Huffington (pictured here)–who was derided by some when she co-founded the left-leaning site in 2005 with investor and well-known communications exec Kenneth Lerer–will become president and editor in chief of the Huffington Post Media Group within AOL.

The deal was signed late this afternoon, and the board of directors of each company and shareholders of the privately held Huffington Post have approved the transaction.

In an exclusive video interview BoomTown conducted earlier today in Dallas, just before Super Bowl XLV, both Armstrong and Huffington were jovial that the whirlwind deal, begun in November, actually worked out so quickly.

Perhaps giddy, they hit upon a common motto:

“One plus one equals 11.”

Get it? One and one next to each other is the number 11!

Let’s move on, shall we?

AOL said it is expected to close in the late-first or early-second quarter of 2011.

Once culminated, it will put Huffington in charge of all AOL content and other properties, including well-known names such as Engadget, Moviefone, MapQuest and TechCrunch.

She said she plans to move to New York from Los Angeles, although she will also maintain her longtime Brentwood home there.

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

More to the point, the flashy acquisition–which essentially came together in less than two weeks in January–will become the linchpin of AOL CEO Tim Armstrong’s aggressive, if risky, strategy to focus the long-troubled company as a content and advertising powerhouse.

For AOL, the deal gives it a popular branded site that is very good at generating lots of page views and impressions very efficiently–which is the company’s whole thrust these days.

That means lots more ad inventory to sell and an injection of content talent, giving AOL the scale it desperately needs.

The move also obviously gives AOL a much-needed editorial identity and cohesion, which it doesn’t really have.

In fact, many think AOL needs a rallying point to bring clarity to its hodgepodge of recent acquisitions that all center on the notion that a strong company has yet to emerge in the premium content space.

Here is a mock-up of the front page of AOL tonight (click on it to make it larger):

While it all makes for a riveting narrative by the charming Armstrong, AOL still has not delivered the business turnaround promised after its spinoff from Time Warner in 2009.

Wall Street, which has given Armstrong a lot of rope, has become more impatient of late to see results–especially more robust increases in its display advertising business, as its access business dies off–after AOL spun off from Time Warner in 2009.

In its quarterly report last week, AOL reported earnings of 61 cents a share on revenue of $596 million.

But, as MediaMemo’s Peter Kafka wrote:

The bigger picture is that Armstrong’s turnaround is still in progress. Ad revenue was down 29 percent in the last quarter, although that number is worse than it looks. A big chunk of the decline comes from moves AOL has intentionally made that will cut revenue in the short run in return for more profitable sales down the road.

A more representative data set for Armstrong are his display ad sales, which are down 14 percent overall and eight percent in the U.S..

The bad news is that the rest of the Web ad industry is well into rebound mode; the good news is that AOL has trained Wall Street to expect numbers like these. If you’re waiting to see positive sales numbers, Armstrong said during AOL’s earnings call this morning, wait until the second half of this year.

In any case, the move is a good one for the Huffington Post since it will vault it to the next level of growth.

Other companies, such as Yahoo and NBC Universal, had looked at the company as a purchase target, and many expected it to eventually sell out to a larger company.

Sources close to the Huffington Post said that that outcome seemed the most likely, and the recent expansion of the site and its audience made it a good time to do a deal now.

Talks with Yahoo last year went nowhere, sources said, but Armstrong was not as slow to act.

Indeed, the actual deal happened quickly, said Armstrong and Huffington in a video interview with BoomTown earlier today (which you can see here).

The pair started talking in early November of last year at the Quadrangle Conference in New York and continued their discussions through the holidays.

Armstrong made the official offer to Huffington by phone in January, while she was at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, and he was snowed in in New York.

Five time multiple to the Huffington Post’s upward of $60 million in expected revenue for the coming year, and nearly 10 times the $31 million for 2010, the offer was accepted quickly.

AOL used cash for $300 million of the purchase and $15 million in stock for the rest.

“The idea of turning a fire hose of traffic onto our content made enormous sense,” said one person close to the situation. “Everything is changing so fast, it seemed like the time was right.”

An IPO was also considered for the Huffington Post, sources said. But since the site only recently moved into profitability–although barely–such an event would have been farther out.

That’s despite the fact that the Huffington Post has seen fast-growing traffic and influence, spurred in part by Huffington’s larger-than-life persona in both the mainstream media and blogosphere.

The wide-ranging site–which has added a number of content areas in recent years beyond its flagship political offering–currently has almost 26 million unique monthly visitors, according to recent stats, moving in close range to established news organizations such as the New York Times.

That kind of success seemed unlikely when the Huffington Post launched on May 9, 2005, positioning itself as as a liberal counterweight to the popular right-leaning Drudge Report.

But the Huffington Post’s heady mix of celebrity bloggers, personality and voice, as well as aggressive curation of links from other sites, quickly caught on.

To fund its efforts, the New York-based online media company has raised $37 million from angel investors such as Lerer–the largest individual shareholder, followed closely by Huffington–and venture firms such as Greycroft Partners, Softbank Capital and Oak Investment Partners.

The growth has not been without controversy around issues such as lack of payments to bloggers who contribute and accusations that the site uses too much content from other Web sources when linking.

And Huffington herself has also been a lightning rod, which has been both positive and negative for the site.

But, there is no question she is one of the Web’s most prominent players, along with writing books, appearing on television frequently and being a fixture at high-profile events in New York, Los Angeles and Washington, D.C.

That includes a never-ending panoply of parties that feature a potent mix of movie stars, corporate poo-bahs, glad-handing politicians and lots of journalists from all over the media.

In fact, full disclosure, I was at one of those parties this past weekend for actor Colin Firth and others involved in the making of the Oscar-nominated film “The King’s Speech.” (Apropos of nothing, actor Helena Bonham Carter is as smart as you would expect, but much more delicate.)

As part of the AOL deal, CEO Eric Hippeau–who has been integral to professionalizing the business and will be joining Lerer Ventures–and Chief Revenue Officer Greg Coleman will leave the Huffington Post.

Ironically, Coleman was replaced by Armstrong as head of ad sales at AOL after he took over as CEO. Coleman got a big payout and will now apparently get another.

But the rest of the 200 Huffington Post employees are moving over to AOL with Huffington, who Armstrong hopes will be the company’s ace in the content hole going forward.

There are likely to be changes to come too at AOL, within weeks, especially in its content-side management and site staffs.

AOL provided some quotes in support of the deal from prominent Internet figures who know Huffington well.

“Arianna is one of the preeminent authors and editors of our time, and Tim has a remarkable track record of business success,” said Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg. “Bringing them together creates tremendous potential for AOL.”

And Twitter co-founder Biz Stone said:

“Editorial vision and leadership are essential in order to transmute our shared cacophony of voices into a valuable dialogue. Arianna’s expertise, empathy, and entrepreneurial enthusiasm forms a kind of alchemy turning mere words and phrases into powerful expressions of humanity.”

Inter-Internet harmony: How sweet!

Here is the official press release, with all the details, but there is also an 8 am ET AOL conference call tomorrow:

AOL AGREES TO ACQUIRE THE HUFFINGTON POST

Acquisition Will Solidify AOL’s Strategy of Creating a Premier Content Network With Local, National and International Reach

Arianna Huffington To Lead Newly Formed The Huffington Post Media Group Which Will Integrate All Huffington Post and AOL Content, Including News, Tech, Women, Local, Multicultural, Entertainment, Video, Community, and More

The New Combined Media Group Will Reach 117 Million Americans and 270 Million Globally

Group Uniquely Positioned To Redefine the Future of Brand Advertising and Marketing For an Engaged and Influential Audience

New York, NY–February 7, 2011–AOL Inc. [NYSE:AOL] announced today that it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire The Huffington Post, the influential and rapidly growing news, analysis, and lifestyle website founded in 2005, which now counts nearly 25 million unique monthly visitors*.

The transaction will create a premier global, national, local, and hyper-local content group for the digital age–leveraged across online, mobile, tablet, and video platforms. The combination of AOL’s infrastructure and scale with The Huffington Post’s pioneering approach to news and innovative community building among a broad and sophisticated audience will mark a seminal moment in the evolution of digital journalism and online engagement.

The new group will have a combined base of 117 million unique visitors a month in the United States and 270 million around the world**. Following the close of this transaction, AOL will accelerate its strategy to deliver a scaled and differentiated array of premium news, analysis, and entertainment produced by thousands of writers, editors, reporters, and videographers around the globe.

As part of the transaction, Arianna Huffington, The Huffington Post’s co-founder and editor-in-chief, will be named president and editor-in-chief of The Huffington Post Media Group, which will include all Huffington Post and AOL content, including Engadget, TechCrunch, Moviefone, MapQuest, Black Voices, PopEater, AOL Music, AOL Latino, AutoBlog, Patch, StyleList, and more.

“The acquisition of The Huffington Post will create a next-generation American media company with global reach that combines content, community, and social experiences for consumers,” said Tim Armstrong, Chairman and CEO of AOL. “Together, our companies will embrace the digital future and become a digital destination that delivers unmatched experiences for both consumers and advertisers.”

Armstrong continued, “Arianna is a singularly passionate and dedicated champion of innovative journalistic engagement, and a master of the art of using new media to illuminate, entertain and enhance the national conversation. Arianna is a remarkable person and she will continue to create remarkable outcomes for the combined company.”

“This is truly a merger of visions and a perfect fit for us,” said Huffington. “The Huffington Post will continue on the same path we have been on for the last six years–though now at light speed–by combining with AOL. Our readers will still be able to come to the Huffington Post at the same URL, and find all the same content they’ve grown to love, plus a lot more–more local, more tech, more entertainment, more finance, and lots more video. We are fusing a legendary and powerful new media brand with a vibrant, innovative news organization, known for its distinctive voice, a highly engaged audience, an expertise in community-building, and a track record for demystifying the news and putting flesh and blood on the data while drawing our audience into the conversation.”

Huffington continued, “By uniting AOL and The Huffington Post, we are creating one of the largest destinations for smart content and community on the Internet. And we intend to keep making it better and better.”

Kenneth Lerer, The Huffington Post’s Co-Founder and Chairman, said, “The Huffington Post team has created a potent brand with the proven track record of knowing how to grow traffic, inform and entertain its readers and build a one-of-a-kind online community. Add that to the powerful scale and resources of AOL and you have the perfect combination for today and the future. Together these two companies will be a premier online content provider. From local citizen reporting through AOL’s Patch, to The Huffington Post’s national reporting on politics, business and culture, consumers will have access to everything they want whenever they want it.”

AOL has agreed to purchase The Huffington Post for $315 million, approximately $300 million of which will be paid in cash funded from cash on hand. The Huffington Post is privately owned by its two cofounders, as well as a group of investors. The proposed transaction is subject to customary closing conditions, including receipt of government approvals. The boards of directors of each company and shareholders of The Huffington Post have approved the transaction. The transaction is expected to close in the late first- or early second-quarter 2011.

The Huffington Post over-indexes on educated, affluent users, reaching the key decision makers in C-suites around the globe. The Huffington Post speaks to this influential audience via a host of prominent voices on its group blog. Among those who have blogged on The Huffington Post are: President Barack Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Larry Page, Diane Sawyer, Buzz Aldrin, Nora Ephron, Bill Maher, Madeleine Albright, Robert Redford, Katie Couric, Neil Young, Rahm Emanuel, Mia Farrow, Senator Russ Feingold, Senator Al Franken, Ari Emanuel, Harry Shearer, Senator John Kerry, Representative Nancy Pelosi, Madonna, Lawrence Summers, Jamie Lee Curtis, Ryan Reynolds, Craig Newmark, Alec Baldwin, Aaron Sorkin, Natalie Portman, Scarlett Johansson, Russell Simmons, Sean Penn, Bill Gates, Norman Lear, Charlie Rose, Elizabeth Warren, Tavis Smiley, Sheryl Sandberg, George Clooney, and former President Bill Clinton. And the audience speaks back, generating four million comments a month***.

The Huffington Post’s affluent, influential audience, that is growing at a rate of 22 percent (December 2009 vs. December 2010)****, when combined with AOL’s massive scale, video offerings and local expertise, will represent an incredibly desirable demographic for a broad range of advertising partners across the board.

And here is Armstrong’s internal memo to the AOL staff:

AOLers,

We are taking another major step in the comeback of AOL. Today we are announcing that we have agreed to acquire The Huffington Post, one of the most exciting, influential, and fastest growing properties on the Internet. We believe in brands, quality journalism, and the positive role of communities in the world–The Huffington Post shares our values and the combination of the two companies will create the premier global and local media company on the Internet.

Co-founded six years ago by Arianna Huffington and Ken Lerer, The Huffington Post has grown to become an industry leader–one of the Web’s most popular and innovative sources of online news, commentary, and information. Arianna and team have created a brand and a destination that focuses on the consumer experience. By combining The Huffington Post with AOL’s network of sites, thriving video offerings, local expertise and enormous reach, we will create a company that is laser-focused on serving our audiences across every platform imaginable–social, local, video, mobile and tablet.

The Huffington Post is core to our strategy and our 80:80:80 focus–80% of domestic spending is done by women, 80% of commerce happens locally and 80% of considered purchases are driven by influencers. The influencer part of the strategy is important and will be potent.

The Huffington Post is a strong influencer brand and it attracts a valuable audience, including a great focus on women’s content. In addition, Arianna Huffington is a world-renowned expert on women’s topics and issues, and has enabled The Huffington Post to grow rapidly by continually developing new audiences.

In the local area, the combination of the two companies will create a scaled connection between global and local communities on one platform. This will create a new way for people to get local and global information in a timely and entertaining way.

The Huffington Post will join the family of AOL Brands that are destinations for an influencer audience, brands like TechCrunch, Engadget, AutoBlog, and Moviefone. Uniquely, The Huffington Post is the platform for influential people–the people that drive trends, commerce, politics, entertainment, news, and information. Adding this strategic platform to our already strong network of sites, including the AOL homepage, has the potential to make AOL the most influential company in the content space.

Arianna Huffington is one of the most successful entrepreneurs in the Internet space and someone that is even more successful in building communities and relationships in every corner of the globe. The Huffington Post and Arianna have created a company that has partnered with the most successful and well-known leaders in all aspects of society that touch important topics to give consumers direct access to the most influential decision makers and community leaders.

This acquisition will create a high-quality and diverse digital ecosystem encompassing local, national and international news, politics, entertainment, technology, fashion, sports, health, personal finance, green, lifestyle, the arts and more. This deal will combine the amazing talent at AOL with the innovative and talented staff of The Huffington Post. Here are just a few high-level points around what this deal brings to market:

* Together, AOL and The Huffington Post will have 117MM unduplicated domestic monthly UVs, and ~270MM monthly UVs worldwide (according to comScore Dec 2010).

* The Huffington Post is one of the fastest growing web properties on the Internet. It grew 22% last year–that’s faster than Twitter, which grew 18% – and 15x as quickly as the Internet grew last year (comScore Dec ’09-’10).

* Both AOL and The Huffington Post count powerful, affluent users among their top loyal visitors, significantly over-indexing in $100K+ income users.

* AOL passed Hulu in unique viewers on video in the fourth quarter of 2010; video views on AOL are up 400 percent year-over-year.

* Between AOL’s innovative Project Devil ad unit, engaging users for 27 seconds longer than traditional display ads, and The Huffington Post’s highly-vocal community, with 4MM+ comments per month, we will marry attention-grabbing content and brand experiences for both advertisers and consumers.

In the local area, the combination of the two companies will create a premier global/local syndication network at scale. This will create a new way for people to get local and global information in a timely, informative and entertaining way.

To maximize the strategic advantage of this great deal, we will be creating a new group at AOL called The Huffington Post Media Group. Within this group will be AOL Media, AOL Local & Mapping, AOL Search and our new friends at The Huffington Post. We will continue operating the towns structure, AOL.com and HuffingtonPost.com.

I’m thrilled to announce that Arianna Huffington will join AOL’s executive team as President and Editor in Chief of The Huffington Post Media Group. We have asked Jon Brod to lead the overall operational integration on the AOL side of the combined entities. Jon will lead the local group integration and work closely with David Eun and the teams in AOL Media. We will work quickly with The Huffington Post to create a combined organizational design to coincide with the deal closing. While we wait for the required regulatory reviews to be completed and the transaction to close before implementing the design, we will move very quickly to plan the details of the integration of the two companies. To this end, we will announce the new organizational structure as soon as possible.

In the meantime, we will continue creating great content and products for our consumers within the town structure and stay laser-focused on the aggressive goals we have set for our winter luge. We are on the right track and will continue our weekly operating cadence and town structure to drive successful results against our company goals.

Here’s a special message for all of you we taped to welcome The Huffington Post and Arianna to our AOL Family:

http://today.office.aol.com/company-news/2011/02/aol-agrees-buy-huffington-post

And of course we wanted to welcome Arianna to our “You’ve Got” video of the day–check her out on AOL.com.

We will be holding a company all hands meeting to address your questions related to today’s exciting news. We will video conference from our New York office on the 6th Floor at 9:30 AM ET and will be joined by Arianna Huffington and key executives from her organization. We will also be holding a call for our west coast offices at 2:00 PM ET and for our Patch offices at 2:45 PM ET. See below for meeting info (conference rooms will be sent out shortly).

AOL is playing to win…and The Huffington Post and AOL will occupy a unique place in the future of the Internet. Let’s go get it done.

–TA

(More full disclosure: As has been previously reported by MediaMemo, All Things Digital had the briefest and most preliminary of discussions with Armstrong about moving to AOL last year, while exploring several other options. All’s well that ended well: We stayed at Dow Jones, which is owned by News Corp.)

RUSNANO will also provide $100 million in debt guarantees, while Plastic Logic’s existing investor Oak Investment Partners will add another $50 million in equity investment.

“We evaluated multiple locations and potential partners across the globe for our second factory, Plastic Logic CEO Richard Archuleta said in a statement. “We determined Russia with RUSNANO as an investment partner was the best fit for our business. RUSNANO has demonstrated it is fully invested in our goal to commercialize plastic electronics. We are gratified by the RUSNANO investment package and the continued commitment of Oak Investment Partners in bringing this disruptive technology to market.”

Plastic Logic has been showing off its plastic display technology for years (including a demo at D7), but scrapped its first product–the Que e-reader (see image), after several delays. The company said it still hopes to bring to market a business-oriented e-reader and is working to develop such a product. The company said that the Zelongrad factory, which should be ready for production by 2013 or 2014, will employ more than 300 people and have the capacity to crank out hundreds of thousands of displays per month.

“This investment signifies the potential that we see in the future of Plastic Electronics across a variety of commercial and consumer products,” RUSNANO Managing Director Georgy Kolpachev said in a statement. “Flexible plastic electronic displays will provide
another major milestone in how people process information. Entering this new disruptive segment at the stage of its inception gives Russia a chance to win a leading position in global market of future electronics.”

Despite its new Russian plans, Plastic Logic said it plans to continue investing in the Dresden, Germany, plant it opened in 2008, as well as its research and development center in Cambridge, England.

Still unclear is just how it will compete with the likes of the Kindle, iPad, Nook and the many, many other tablets and e-readers that will hit the market before anything ships from Dresden, Zelenograd or any other Plastic Logic facility.

This seems to have been a busy week for Demand Media CEO and founder Richard Rosenblatt (pictured here), with news of a big-banker hiring in a pending IPO of his social media start-up and the possible sale of a digital marketing company where he serves as chairman.

Indeed, Demand has hired Goldman Sachs (GS) to prep its initial public offering, sources told BoomTown, which the company is expected to file in August at a valuation of about $1.5 billion.

This confirms an earlier report in the Financial Times.

The price has to be high, given that Rosenblatt has managed to raise an eye-popping $355 million from a slate of high-profile backers, including Goldman Sachs, Oak Investment Partners and well-known media investor Gordon Crawford.

Rosenblatt essentially signaled his intent to move to the public markets with the recent nabbing of high-profile advertising exec Joanne Bradford from Yahoo (YHOO).

Her job: To quickly turbocharge Demand’s business as chief revenue officer. The company now does about $250 million in annual revenue, mostly from advertising.

Rosenblatt, who was part of the team that sold MySpace to News Corp. (NWS) for $650 million, could also be about to score another big-time sale.

This time, it is digital marketing firm iCrossing, sources said, in a deal with media giant Hearst Corp., which could close in the next two weeks, if all goes well.

First reported in The Wall Street Journal, the price for the large Scottsdale, Ariz.-based firm is hovering at about $375 million.

Not coincidentally, with Rosenblatt in common, iCrossing shares investors with Demand, including Goldman Sachs and Oak.

Here’s hoping Rosenblatt will be able to talk about all this and more in an onstage interview at the eighth D: All Things Digital conference this June.

He will appear in a session at D8 with former Wall Street Journal editor Paul Steiger, who is trying to save investigative journalism at a nonprofit called ProPublica.

The less lofty content created by Demand and others, such as AOL (AOL), using algorithms and other means, has attracted controversy, with worries about its impact on the traditional media business.

This seems to have been a busy week for Demand Media CEO and founder Richard Rosenblatt (pictured here), with news of a big-banker hiring in a pending IPO of his social media start-up and the possible sale of a digital marketing company where he serves as chairman.

Indeed, Demand has hired Goldman Sachs (GS) to prep its initial public offering, sources told BoomTown, which the company is expected to file in August at a valuation of about $1.5 billion.

This confirms an earlier report in the Financial Times.

The price has to be high, given that Rosenblatt has managed to raise an eye-popping $355 million from a slate of high-profile backers, including Goldman Sachs, Oak Investment Partners and well-known media investor Gordon Crawford.

Rosenblatt essentially signaled his intent to move to the public markets with the recent nabbing of high-profile advertising exec Joanne Bradford from Yahoo (YHOO).

Her job: To quickly turbocharge Demand’s business as chief revenue officer. The company now does about $250 million in annual revenue, mostly from advertising.

Rosenblatt, who was part of the team that sold MySpace to News Corp. (NWS) for $650 million, could also be about to score another big-time sale.

This time, it is digital marketing firm iCrossing, sources said, in a deal with media giant Hearst Corp., which could close in the next two weeks, if all goes well.

First reported in The Wall Street Journal, the price for the large Scottsdale, Ariz.-based firm is hovering at about $375 million.

Not coincidentally, with Rosenblatt in common, iCrossing shares investors with Demand, including Goldman Sachs and Oak.

Here’s hoping Rosenblatt will be able to talk about all this and more in an onstage interview at the eighth D: All Things Digital conference this June.

He will appear in a session at D8 with former Wall Street Journal editor Paul Steiger, who is trying to save investigative journalism at a nonprofit called ProPublica.

The less lofty content created by Demand and others, such as AOL (AOL), using algorithms and other means, has attracted controversy, with worries about its impact on the traditional media business.

In the ongoing game of Internet exec musical chairs, Greg Coleman (pictured here), who has been a top exec at both Yahoo and AOL, is poised to become president of the Huffington Post, as well as chief revenue officer, several sources said.

The deal for Coleman to come on board at the privately held online news site–which has grown significantly over the last year and just added well-known online media exec Eric Hippeau as CEO–came together only recently.

And it is not clear what the role of current Huffington Post Chief Revenue Officer James Smith will be going forward.

The Coleman hiring is most likely the work of Hippeau, who has known him from Coleman’s days as head of ad sales at Yahoo (YHOO). Hippeau has been on the board of the Internet giant for many years.

Hippeau was also a key player in the $5 million investment in the Huffington Post by SoftBank Capital in 2006.

He has also been a director on its small board, which also includes co-founders Arianna Huffington and Kenny Lerer, as well as Oak Investment Partners’ Fred Harman.

Oak recently added $25 million to the funding kitty at the Huffington Post, which is headquartered in New York.

The money will be used to expand the site into the local arena, investigative news, and verticals such as tech, a section set to debut Sept. 21.

It is all being done to build on what has been a strong traffic year for the Huffington Post, which claims it has over 21 million unique monthly visitors.

Nielsen Online has pegged that at the lower figure of 8.9 million, but reported that the Huffington Post was one of the fastest-growing, year-over-year news sites.

Despite that, the site still has not been regularly profitable, despite doubling annual revenue–mostly in advertising–to what some estimate to be about $8 million in 2009.

Presumably, goosing that revenue is what Coleman is being pegged to help do–and he certainly has a lot of online advertising experience, having made stops at a lot of Internet companies in the past few years.

He was head of advertising sales at Yahoo for seven years, after another long stint at Reader’s Digest. Yahoo’s ad business grew strongly under him.

But Coleman ran into Yahoo’s management buzzsaw after trouble hit the company in 2007. He was one of the first in a long line of execs to leave the troubled company, departing in one of its many controversial reorganizations.

He was soon running a Los Angeles-based start-up called NetSeer, which focuses on ad targeting.

He then headed to AOL in February to run its Platform-A division.

But when new management was suddenly put in place by Time Warner (TWX) in the spring, Coleman left after only a few months on the job.

After taking the summer off, several sources said, he has recently been looking at a variety of jobs.

That included MySpace, where former Yahoo colleague Wenda Harris Millard–now with Media Link–was hired recently as an outside consultant to help the News Corp. (NWS) social networking site rejigger its ad business.

The Huffington Post spokesman declined to comment when BoomTown inquired about Coleman’s hiring.

Apparently, if you want to think about the growth of the Huffington Post as a culinary dish, perhaps today’s replacement of CEO Betsy Morgan with longtime online media powerhouse Eric Hippeau might appear under the Emeril Lagasse cooking cliché: Let’s kick it up a notch!

Both co-founders of the online media site, Arianna Huffington and Kenneth Lerer, said as much in interviews I did with them this afternoon, after news of the change got out–even as they praised Morgan for the strong work she had done in the 18 months she had been in charge.

“The deal is that we simply have been growing so fast that we needed more firepower to accelerate in expanding the site and monetizing it,” said Huffington, who is also editor-in-chief of the Web news site (and pictured above).

“Things are going great, but things could be going even greater,” added Lerer, who is chairman of the Huffington Post, noting that a more experienced exec was needed at this juncture to take the business to the next level.

“Eric is a peer at all the big companies we need to partner and deal with…and right now, while things are difficult in the economy, is the time when you can really build a company and we had to take advantage of that opportunity.”

So, ipso facto, Morgan was out in favor of Hippeau, who was the key player in the $5 million investment in the Huffington Post by SoftBank Capital in 2006.

Hippeau is a director on its small board, which also includes Huffington, Lerer and Oak Investment Partners’ Fred Harman. Morgan will be vacating her board seat.

Oak recently added $25 million to the funding kitty at the Huffington Post, money that Lerer and Huffington said had not been used yet.

But it soon will be, both noted, with the site expanding aggressively into the local arena, investigative news and verticals such as tech.

It is all being done to build on what has been a strong traffic year for the Huffington Post, which claims it has over 21 million unique monthly visitors.

Nielsen Online has pegged that at the lower figure of 8.9 million, but reported that the Huffington Post was one of the fastest-growing, year-over-year news sites.

Despite that, the site still has not been regularly profitable, said Huffington, despite doubling annual revenue–mostly in advertising–to what some estimate to be about $8 million in 2009.

Hippeau (pictured here) has a lot of experience working at a panoply of early online media businesses, including as CEO of Ziff-Davis.

He has also been a longtime Web investor, pushing for SoftBank’s early investment in Yahoo (YHOO), where Hippeau remains a board member.

That should not present a conflict for Yahoo, said Hippeau, which had a short-lived publishing partnership with the Huffington Post.

Hippeau, who has been a managing partner at SoftBank, will become a special partner and adviser to the investment firm. In this capacity, he will continue to work with three start-ups–Buddy Media, BuzzFeed and ThumbPlay.

Hippeau, who is now diving back into an operating role for the first time in almost a decade, said it was hard to pass up the chance to run the New York-based Huffington Post.

“I could not pass such an opportunity, especially with the explosion in the delivery of the news and opinion on the Web,” he said. “This is really the place to build the next really big brand.”

To get to that level, Hippeau said that a lot of things have to happen at the site going forward.

“Clearly we have got to make the revenues commensurate with traffic of the site and size of the opportunity,” he said. “At the same time, we have got to make sure we are very community-focused and using all kinds of new tools to increase engagement.”

Hippeau noted that journalism was changing radically, and “what people want to know is what are people thinking and how can I contribute and we are just at the beginning of this phase.”

Of particular interest to him are real-time data and real-time communications–on sites like Twitter–and the growth of smartphone usage.

“We are getting into a situation in the U.S., where it is so much easier to access all kinds of information and so much more portable,” said Hippeau. “Everyone has talked about convergence for a long time and it is finally here and we are poised to take great advantage of that.”

The moves at the Huffington Post were first reported by paidContent.org.

Huffington appeared onstage at the recent D: All Things Digital conference with Washington Post (WPO) publisher Katharine Weymouth.

Here is a highlights video of the interview I did with them:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20090615/boomtown-interviews-arianna-ken-and-eric-about-huffington-post-exec-changes-bam/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20090515/federated-media-will-search-for-new-leader-says-founder-and-ceo-battelle-plus-a-web-squared-and-double-d-video/ http://allthingsd.com/20090515/federated-media-will-search-for-new-leader-says-founder-and-ceo-battelle-plus-a-web-squared-and-double-d-video/#comments Fri, 15 May 2009 17:32:20 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=13585

John Battelle (pictured here), the founder, chairman and CEO of Federated Media Publishing, told his staff this morning that he will begin a search for a new top exec to take the company into its next stage of growth.

Battelle, who is apparently not leaving the San Francisco-based company, wrote that the new exec–whose title could be CEO–would report to him.

In a post on the FM site about the move called “The Start of Something, Again,” he wrote:

“It’s time to take it to the next level. FM is no longer a scrappy startup, and while its leadership team is deep and experienced, we’ve come to the conclusion that to take the company to the place we all know it can go, we need an additional leader on board. So today, I’m announcing that I’m officially launching a search for that position. It used to be you did this in private, but we live in the world of social media, and one of FM’s mores is transparency. I want to honor that value today.

So let me be clear: I am in no way leaving the business. This new leader–the title will depend on the person–will be responsible for running the business–taking all reports and managing to our plan–but he or she will be working very closely with me.”

FM, which sells online advertising for a large group of social-media sites and blogs, raised $50 million in funding a year ago from Oak Investment Partners, giving it a valuation of over $200 million.

The start-up had previously raised about $4.5 million from other investors, including the New York Times, the Omidyar Network and Panorama Capital.

FM reportedly did $40 million in revenue last year and has been cash-flow positive for many years, although the recent economic downturn has impacted its bottom line.

Here is a video interview I did last night with Battelle and others at a dinner he and Tim O’Reilly threw in San Francisco for Silicon Valley movers and shakers, related to the upcoming Web 2.0 Summit that they organize.

He did not mention the exec search at FM, though–instead he talked about the next phase of Web 2.0, which he is now calling “Web Squared.”

No kidding.

Here’s the video–which also includes CBS (CBS) Interactive exec Zander Lurie suggesting a more buxom name for D: All Things Digital:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20090515/federated-media-will-search-for-new-leader-says-founder-and-ceo-battelle-plus-a-web-squared-and-double-d-video/feed/ 1 http://allthingsd.com/20090409/if-yahoos-going-social-is-demand-media-back-on-its-dance-list/ http://allthingsd.com/20090409/if-yahoos-going-social-is-demand-media-back-on-its-dance-list/#comments Thu, 09 Apr 2009 10:10:31 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=11999

Last year, Yahoo EVP Hilary Schneider and then-Media Group head Scott Moore had a summery seaside dinner with Demand Media co-founder and CEO Richard Rosenblatt (pictured here) in Santa Monica, Calif., right around the corner from the online publishing company’s HQ.

While many speculated that Yahoo (YHOO) could be doing some friendly kibitzing to get a sense of where the eclectic network of general- and special-interest sites was headed, for a possible acquisition, nothing came of it.

That’s because at the time, Rosenblatt insisted that he was aiming to eventually take his company public and Yahoo was in the midst of ongoing corporate turmoil.

“There is a lot of potential here and I want to build a big company for the long-term,” said Rosenblatt in an interview with BoomTown last July (see video below).

But, as my post noted: “Still, at some point when Yahoo is not in the free fall it is currently in, Demand might make a great purchase for Yahoo.”

And now, a year later, as new Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz works to stop that slide, several sources close to the company tell me another look-see at Demand is likelier than ever.

That’s underscored with recent indications that a major strategy will finally follow through on making Yahoo’s massive but disparate service more social, especially its content offerings.

But would Bartz go as far as making a big buy now or would she be more likely to strike a massive partnership with Demand, from which Yahoo could learn a lot?

Such an acquisition could cost anywhere from $1.5 billion to–as was floated last year in better times–$3 billion. In addition, if Demand was to engage in more serious talks with Yahoo, there would likely be other suitors.

As costly as that is, some sort of link-up with Demand is an interesting idea, especially since Yahoo could use a bold and definitive move to signal social goals that play to its strengths and are not a copycat of more powerful social-networking sites now in place.

At a Morgan Stanley (MS) conference last month, Bartz said, for example, that “I do not believe we can invent the next Facebook,” while noting Yahoo still needed to be more social throughout the service, especially in its content.

And, just yesterday, a Reuters article about that focus was titled: “Yahoo’s Plan: Create Community from Isolated Sites.”

Said the article: “If [Yahoo co-founder David] Filo and new CEO Carol Bartz have their way, the kinds of social networking features available on Facebook will become part of many Yahoo websites and allow their users to network with each other without using Facebook. The company hopes the strategy will help link its disparate properties, bringing more advertising dollars and growth.”

And that’s just at the heart of Demand Media, which dubs itself the “leader in social media.”

Demand was founded in 2006 by Rosenblatt and Shawn Colo, who raised a giant pool of funding–$355 million–from gold-plated investors like Goldman Sachs (GS), Oak Investment Partners and even a private investment from major Yahoo investor Gordon Crawford.

Getting that kind of backing was due to Rosenblatt’s entrepreneurial track record.

As founder, chairman and CEO, he sold iMALL to Excite@Home for $425 million in a 1999 stock swap.

And, perhaps most famously, as CEO of Intermix Media, Rosenblatt sold it with the company’s crown jewel, MySpace, to News Corp. (NWS) for $580 million in cash.

Then, Rosenblatt started Demand, which takes user-generated content of all kinds and on all kinds of topics–especially via video–from an army of freelancers and leverages it into massive traffic that it monetizes.

Demand is also the one of the bigger suppliers of video to YouTube, which it also monetizes.

And, through the acquisition of Pluck, the company also laces social-networking tools throughout the sites, as well as for many well-known third parties.

All this has given Demand upward of 70 million unique visitors per month, at sites like eHow and GolfLink.com, with about $150 million in annual revenue.

And–drum roll please–it is reportedly profitable, although how much is not clear.

While he has long maintained a public offering was on the horizon, despite the weak economy, Rosenblatt has also been interested in the idea of how to revive major players like Yahoo and Time Warner (TWX) online unit AOL.

Both have been struggling, but still have massive traffic and brand recognition, along with large advertising businesses.

And in many ways, the energetic Rosenblatt is just the kind of product-centric and visionary exec Yahoo lacks, despite Bartz’s clear ability to get the company’s management ducks in order.

What could be even more interesting, said one source, would be to marry Yahoo and Demand with a lot of what is going on with the publishing of niche sites at AOL’s MediaGlow content unit, in a giant publishing network.

Ironically, AOL was another acquisition target of Yahoo, in yet another deal that did not pan out last year.

Here’s the interview with Rosenblatt at Demand Media HQ last year:

[ See post to watch video ]

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20090409/if-yahoos-going-social-is-demand-media-back-on-its-dance-list/feed/ 2 http://allthingsd.com/20090402/live-from-the-cable-show-rupert-murdoch-and-jeff-bewkes/ http://allthingsd.com/20090402/live-from-the-cable-show-rupert-murdoch-and-jeff-bewkes/#comments Thu, 02 Apr 2009 23:38:25 +0000 Peter Kafka http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/?p=5934 Here’s yet another fan of the Kindle, Amazon’s (AMZN) much-hyped e-book reader: News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch, who likes the device enough that he’s considering investing in a Kindle rival.

At a Q&A at the cable industry’s annual show today, Murdoch waxed on about the Kindle’s qualities, then made a reference to investing in a machine that could be even more attractive–one that boasted a large, full-color screen. I was covering the event live [original story below], and these are my notes from the relevant part of his chat. Please bear in mind that this is a very rough paraphrase, from notes I was taking in real time:

We need new models. The first inkling of it is the Kindle. You can get the whole paper there. And you can get the whole of The Wall Street Journal on your BlackBerry. We’re investing in a new device that has a bigger screen, four-color, and you can get everything there. [Did I just hear that correctly?]

After the event, I checked in with a News Corp. spokesperson, who confirmed that I hadn’t been hallucinating: News Corp. is indeed in “exploratory” talks about making an investment in a company working on e-reader technologies.

Who might that be? No guidance there. Plastic Logic, based in Mountain View, Calif., has been working on a reader with a 8.5 by 11-inch screen for several years. But that company has already raised $200 million from investors, including Intel (INTC) and Oak Investment Partners. And its device, scheduled to hit the market in 2010, will feature a black-and-white screen that uses the same E Ink technology that the Kindle and Sony’s (SNE) Reader use.

Another option: Rival publisher Hearst, which has plans for its own Kindle. But Hearst’s unnamed reader will initially be a black-and-white affair as well.

Anyone have any other possibilities? You can reach me directly at peter@allthingsd.com. Or if you want to be completely anonymous, which is understandable but less useful to me (I won’t have any way of reaching you for follow-up) you can use the blind tip box here.

EARLIER:
This year’s cable show seems lightly attended, but folks are are buzzing here about Bob Iger’s comments this morning, where the Disney (DIS) CEO alternately tried to placate and challenge the industry with his online plans. I’ve got high hopes for this one, too, a keynote speech from News Corp.’s (NWS) Rupert Murdoch, who will then take a seat and chat with three fellow CEOs: Time Warner’s (TWX) Jeff Bewkes, Viacom’s (VIA) Philippe Dauman, and Liberty Global’s Michael Fries.

Moderating the discussion: Murdoch employee Neil Cavuto, who does anchor work at both Fox News and Fox Business (and since this Web site is owned by Dow Jones, I’m a Murdoch employee, too).

I’ll be covering the Q&A live, which means that any text you read below is an on-the-fly attempt to paraphrase the speakers on stage–unless it’s in quotes, which represent my best attempt to get the words verbatim.

Starts with Q&A with Murdoch.
NC: Are things getting better?
RM: I think the long-term situation is still extremely dangerous. I’m pessimistic because every family is poorer and they’re going to save more and spend less. Even more dangerous if the government throws too much money at the problem:

NC: What if you’re wrong?
RM: “I pray I am”

NC: Markets are up in reaction to G20 plan. Is that the kind of thing you’re talking about (re too much spending from Congress, etc.)
RM: I’ve never seen any money from the World Bank that’s done much good. Maybe the IMF should be recapitalized. But it doesn’t matter, because none of the money will come back to the U.S. “I would say it’s a bear market still. We’re not going back to the old levels anytime soon. We’re two or three years away.”

NC: What about the economy?
RM: May get better in a year. “I walk around the streets of New York, and all I see is “to let” signs everywhere.” Space we rented for $80 a foot on Sixth Avenue is now $60 a square foot. On our business in general: Advertising is flowing out of the big networks, but our cable advertising is up. “They’re in good shape, and we’re very happy to have a number of them.”

NC: They are rioting in London against capitalism “they’re rioting against success…they don’t like rich people. Are you offended?”
RM: No. There’s only about 4,000 of them. “Makes good television, someone with blood on their face…but it’s greatly overstated.” I have had worse problems when I had strikes 20 years ago.

NC: So you don’t buy this sort of “new global class warfare.”
RM: It’s very dangerous. “We all know in the last two or three years there have been notable headline-grabbing excesses, in this country and in Europe, despite what the Europeans are saying, and we’re paying for that.” But I don’t think we’re going to have class warfare. “We do need an SEC that’s awake,” in part so we don’t have work with the French and their regulators.

NC: Everyone’s piling on the U.S. What does that mean for the U.S.?
RM: I don’t care what the French say. “But when the Chinese speak, I pay some notice.” The Chinese don’t want us in an inflationary situation, or they won’t lend us money.

NC: President Obama talked about working with the rest of the world. Is Washington saying that “we are this big global powerhouse together”?
RM: It’s very nice for the President to say that, but I don’t think Bush ever did that. He was talking to world leaders every day. He wasn’t as articulate about it as Obama. But “we’re the big boy on the block” so naturally people are jealous, but we better remain “damned sure” that we remain the big boy.

NC: But we owe everyone lots of money.
RM: That’s what worries me. I worry that we’re going to start printing lots of money, we’ll have runaway inflation.

NC: You just said Obama is brilliant. Your companies “have a reputation for being slightly more conservative than he is.”
RM: “We’re fair and balanced.”
NC: “Absolutely.”
RM: The monolithic liberal press complains when they don’t get a corner of the world; “if they want to smear you, or me, that’s fine.” Re Obama: “I’ve had a couple of very charming conversations with him.” He talks about how pragmatic he is. “We’ll see.” So far, a couple of little tests have been disappointing. With regard to Teamsters and school vouchers in Washington.

NC: So you’re saying he has a reputation for being pragmatic, but he isn’t. And he doesn’t seem to like Wall Street either.
RM: “That’s putting it too strongly” I think it offends him to see people making $200 million dollars a year, or whatever it is.

NC: Taxes are going up for the wealthy.
RM: Yes. So “we’ll go live in Texas.” It’s serious. a 60 percent tax rate is going up. Not just the federal taxes, but states, and counties. My Long Island house “is not very big at all” but what Nassau charges for taxes is enormous. The bill has gone up from $3,000 to $7,000 or $8,000. “I’m trying to sell my house.”

NC: You’re a newspaper guy. Newspapers as a physical product are dying. San Francisco may not have a paper at all soon. What do you think of that?
RM: “It’s sad. But let’s face it. San Francisco is a pretty small area. And there’s some pretty good papers in that area,” and they’re not folding. “People are getting used to getting everything on the net for nothing. That’s going to have to change.” Take the New York Times. No matter what you’re going to say about it, it has a very very good Web site. But it’s never going to make enough money to cover what it’s losing on the print side. The question is: “Should we be allowing Google to steal all our copyrights? Just take them? Not just Google but all the aggregators? Yahoo? And I feel that if you have a brand that’s strong enough, like the New York Times, they should be able to go to Google and say ‘no.’” So when you go to search on Google, it doesn’t show up. But there’s only 10 or 15 of those, probably.

We need new models. The first inkling of it is the Kindle. You can get the whole paper there. And you can get the whole of The Wall Street Journal on your BlackBerry. We’re investing in a new device that has a bigger screen, four-color, and you can get everything there. [Did I just hear that correctly?]

[Time to bring on the other panelists]

PD: “If I may, I’d just like to say bon jour to Rupert.”

NC: Philippe Dauman, you said you’re seeing some positivity in your business. Where?

PD: Theater sales are healthy. Cable is OK. Saw some deterioration in ad sales, but in last few weeks, we’re seeing some plateauing. On the kids’ cable channel upfront, we’re starting to do well. “There are some advertisers that are increasing their spend. They’re healthy, and they see an opportunity to expand market share. Advertising works, even for banks.”

Jeff Bewkes: We’re pretty much seeing the same thing. Advertising for print is down, cable is very strong. AOL, “not so strong.” The problem is that outside the U.S., growth rates have come down, and financial problems are much worse. “But I think it’s short-term” so we’re still investing. Invested in Eastern Europe.

Michael Fries: We’re doing OK, too. Cable isn’t immune, but we’re selling products people need. Our Eastern European markets aren’t doing great, but fundamentally we’re still growing. We’re still growing through this. Since we’re not ad-supported, we’re not having down markets or down quarters. In some of our markets, there will be some consolidation, and we can get some of our competitors out of the way.

[Missed a section on broadband and infrastructure outside the U.S. Apologies]

NC: You have great content but on the Web, but many people don’t pay for it. What can you do about that? Do you have to do deals with the likes of Hulu, and get pennies on the dollar instead of giving it away?

PD: There’s a middle ground we’re trying to follow. Consumer behavior changes, revenue models have to change, too. We put a lot of content on line, we also do a lot “windowing.” Some content like news goes online right away, and the “Daily Show.” That’s on Hulu. But you do get incremental monetization “if you do it right.” “Daily Show” ratings are up since we went on Hulu. We have to experiment and see what we can do to enhance the experience.

MF: Content doesn’t follow eyeballs. Content follows money. Content providers want first and foremost to get paid. Consumers want random access to content. They want high-quality content. I like the idea [i.e., to put all their stuff online] that Time Warner and Comcast is promoting “is a no-brainer.” Online now has a negligible impact on TV, so right now it’s something we can get a hold off.

RM: It varies from show to show. A good show can get improved ratings over time, via the DVR. Like “24.” A lot of stuff that’s DVR’d is played that evening. “There’s no loyalty to audiences at all. There’s loyalty to certain shows.”

NC: Journalists are moving to the Web, but they’re not going to get paid as much on the Web [yup]. Point being: Aren’t authors and artists who produce work for the Web, or the Kindle, going to get screwed?

PD: No. You can charge lower prices but you have lower costs. If you have a secure download-to-own business, you can protect revenues for everyone.

NC: But generally, don’t all content creators have to realize that their content is worth less?

JB: This is the cable convention. Rupert’s right about not having loyalty to broadcast networks. But there is, or at least different identities, on cable. The broadcast business has its challenges, as we know. But the cable channels have the most value and the most future….This industry can now deliver all our great stuff on broadband, and over mobile. [Rambling here but basically Bewkes is repitching his "TV everywhere" idea] “We’re not trying to make the Internet not free. We’re just saying that if you use it for free, you ought to get what you have in your home….Look how slow we’re being. We’re all being too slow to put all these channels and put them broadband….We ought to do it, and we ought to do it now….Put it on the Hulus and YouTubes if you need too, but only if people are subscribing to the cable plans. You can’t just blow up the financial structure….We ought to be taking the advertising model from cable networks and moving it over to broadband.”

NC: That isn’t what I was asking about. What about us content creators?

PD: “We treat creators of content really well.”

JB: “Yeah.”

PD: Back to Bewkes’s plan. People get the advertising model.

RM: People are used to the free content being free, and “the fact is that nobody’s making money with the free content on the Web, except for search.” We’ve got to find a way to charge.

MF: This notion that we’ll figure out how to pay for something, someday, is wrong. There’s value in aggregators and editors, and people go to Fox News because they know what they’re getting. “We have a generation below this lost generation that we can capture and retain, if this industry does it right.”

JB: Hey, want to see what that looks like? [Now it's time for Bewkes to run a promo, literally for HBO. "HBO GO." The "coolest way to watch HBO on your computer....If you have the key, it's free." I am assuming that this is a mock ad for a product that Bewkes would like to exist--HBO OnDemand, online.

JB: I apologize for running a commercial.

PD: That works well for pay cable channels like HBO and Showtime and our new channel. Not sure about other channels.

NC: Let's say our recession/depression lingers for a while "a real protracted type of a deal." What then for entertainment?

JB: It will hold up.

NC: What about advertising?

JB: Less.

PD: It will be slow, but we'll get through it. We have to plan for the possibility that it will be bad for a long time. You spend less, you have to be careful about not spending on things that aren't you core brands, and acquisitions, and that can be self-defeating. We're dependent on Washington in some ways, but what we really need are the credit markets to work again.

MF: Bingo.

NC: How has recession affected you personally? Do you change the way you display your wealth, or your own personal behavior?

JB: [Sitting next to Murdoch] “I tend to sit next to people who are richer than me.”

PD: Hotel managers are beside themselves because no one has business meetings, and then they have to fire working class people. But I think this “populist surge” about abuses will pass. “We’re going through an extreme period, and this is a country that still values entrepreneurial behavior.”

[Panel is over.]

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20090402/live-from-the-cable-show-rupert-murdoch-and-jeff-bewkes/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20081212/sarah-palin-please-come-back-hulu-traffic-drops-in-november/ http://allthingsd.com/20081212/sarah-palin-please-come-back-hulu-traffic-drops-in-november/#comments Fri, 12 Dec 2008 20:43:40 +0000 Peter Kafka http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/?p=2050 File under “interesting, but understandable”: After a flurry of election-related interest in October, traffic to red-hot Hulu fell off in November. Blame Sarah Palin–or the lack of her.

ComScore says that traffic to the joint venture between News Corp.’s (NWS) Fox and GE’s (GE) NBC fell 10.8 percent from October to November, dropping from 5.3 million unique visitors to 4.8 million. (Hulu’s PR team notes that ComScore’s separate “VideoMetrix” panel assigned a much bigger audience to the site last month: 24 million uniques. They haven’t put out November numbers yet but I’ll update when I get them).

ComScore (SCOR) says U.S. traffic at Google’s (GOOG) YouTube also dropped that month, but by a much smaller margin–0.006 percent. And since YouTube is a global property, those numbers are less telling. Hulu, meanwhile, is a U.S.-only site (much to the dismay of blog commenters).

Apologies for not figuring out how to show you this data in graph form–I’ll figure it out eventually. For now, click to enlarge.

This makes plenty of sense: Hulu was one of two places were you could (legally) see the “Saturday Night Live” Sarah Palin clips, which were huge sensations. The other one, NBC.com, dropped a whopping 50 percent–from 14.1 million to 7.2 million, comScore says.

And all sorts of Web sites that enjoyed a bump during the run-up to the election have tailed off a bit since then. ComScore says the Huffington Post, for instance, is down 20 percent– from five million uniques to four million. Presumably Oak Investment Partners was aware of that before it sank $25 million into the site last month.

Meanwhile, Hulu still shows impressive growth. If I could have figured out how to create a graph, you’d see that Hulu has still had a huge run-up since March, when it left beta.

Speaking of beta, video site/blog punching bag Joost has logged its first full month of traffic since its Web video player became open to the public. ComScore pegs traffic at 1.1 million uniques; the company says that its data, which include global traffic, show 2.1 million.

Those aren’t huge numbers–I can think of several text-only blogs, which cost a lot less to build and operate than Joost’s site, that garner more eyeballs than that–but they’re not terrible either. Still, Joost has a lot of ground to catch up if it wants to give Hulu a run for its money.

Last but not least! Here’s an excellent clip from the smart folks at the Onion. It’s a month old, but news to me. Enjoy:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20081212/sarah-palin-please-come-back-hulu-traffic-drops-in-november/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20081201/heres-the-official-huffpost-25-million-funding-release/ http://allthingsd.com/20081201/heres-the-official-huffpost-25-million-funding-release/#comments Mon, 01 Dec 2008 12:06:09 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=7204

Here’s the official press release from the popular news and blogging site, The Huffington Post, which announced $25 million in funding from Oak Investment Partners this morning.

(BoomTown’s story on the funding is here, along with an interview with Oak’s Fred Harman)

Sources told BoomTown the investment gives the site–which had 4.5 million unique visitors in September, a quadrupling from a year ago–a valuation of “south of $100 million.”

Here’s the official release:

The Huffington Post Announces $25 Million In Funding From Oak Investment Partners

New York, NY (December 1, 2008)–The Huffington Post, a leading news and opinion site, today announced that it has secured $25 million in funding from Oak Investment Partners, a venture capital firm based in Palo Alto, California. The Huffington Post (“HuffPost”) will use the proceeds to invest in the growth of the company and for select and focused acquisitions. The company said it would invest in its technology and infrastructure, increase its in-house advertising capabilities, and continue to expand its content offerings–including a new investigative journalism initiative and a rollout of local versions of The Huffington Post in select cities. The announcement was made by Arianna Huffington and Kenneth Lerer, co-founders of The Huffington Post.

“This commitment from Oak Investment Partners will allow us to accelerate our growth, with more verticals, more video, more citizen journalism initiatives, more cities for our local editions, and a fund for investigative journalism,” said Arianna Huffington. “We are particularly excited to have Fred Harman of Oak join our board; his deep knowledge of the new media landscape will help us to take HuffPost to the next level.”

Said Kenneth Lerer: “We are thrilled to bring on board a partner like Oak to work with Softbank Capital and Greycroft [Partners] as we move forward. Since launching the site three and half years ago, the company has built a strong brand and an audience of millions who rely on the site for its mix of smart news and opinion. The additional capital from Oak will enable us to go full-steam ahead with operations and select acquisitions.”

Fred Harman, general partner at Oak Investment Partners, said, “Much of the news media business needs to be reassembled online around an ad-supported model and the timetable for this has been accelerated, not slowed, by this economic down cycle. We believe that The Huffington Post has built a platform and business model to be among the leaders in aggregating this audience online. Our financing will provide the resources necessary to scale the company, both organically as well as through acquisitions of additional talent and new media companies. We are also very excited to have the opportunity to back Arianna, Betsy, and the company’s strong entrepreneurial team.”

Betsy Morgan, CEO of The Huffington Post, said, “With funding from Oak, The Huffington Post is perfectly positioned to build on its incredible growth. Oak brings to the table a team with enormous experience and insight, and we look forward to working with them to seize the opportunities ahead of us.”

The Series C financing round comes as The Huffington Post continues to experience significant growth following the expansion of the site in 2007, when HuffPost began rolling out a variety of new sections, including entertainment, politics, media, living, style and green. The site also started its first local version, HuffPost Chicago. This year, The Huffington Post received widespread attention for its original reporting on the 2008 presidential race, including the coverage provided by its OffTheBus team of citizen journalists. HuffPost currently has 46 employees.

Harman joins The Huffington Post board of directors, whose members include: Eric Hippeau, Managing Partner of Softbank Capital, Arianna Huffington, Kenneth Lerer and Betsy Morgan.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20081201/heres-the-official-huffpost-25-million-funding-release/feed/ 2 http://allthingsd.com/20081201/huffington-post-nabs-25-million-in-funding-heres-an-exclusive-boomtown-interview-with-oak-investments-fred-harman/ http://allthingsd.com/20081201/huffington-post-nabs-25-million-in-funding-heres-an-exclusive-boomtown-interview-with-oak-investments-fred-harman/#comments Mon, 01 Dec 2008 11:53:26 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=7157 The Huffington Post will announce this morning that it has raised $25 million, in a single investment from Oak Investment Partners.

The large round by Oak, which was led by Palo Alto, Calif.-based venture capitalist Fred Harman, will give the popular online news and blog site a valuation of just “south of $100 million,” a source said.

The new funding, the Huffington Post’s third, will be used for expansion of its offerings and the hiring of editorial and business talent.

“There is an inevitable shift from offline to online with people increasingly getting their news media online, and this election proved how powerful the Huffington Post could be,” said Harman (pictured here), in an interview with BoomTown. “And I think the post-election perception of the Huffington Post has changed in the eyes of advertisers to being a key mainstream news site.”

Indeed, the Huffington Post–which is now billing itself as ‘”The Internet Newspaper”–has been hitting on all cylinders during the current election season.

And it hopes to continue building that momentum into the Obama administration, which will give the liberal-leaning site a lot of advantages in coverage.

The Huffington Post has also become a powerful news aggregator, much as the more conservative Drudge Report has, sending traffic all over the Web from its site by linking with a variety of online sites. It also has a strong offering of high-profile bloggers.

But the site’s leaders are also hoping its traffic strength will allow it to be as strong in arenas outside of its flagship political arena, including in business, local, “green” and investigative news.

It will also use the money to make acquisitions, the company said in a press release about the funding, which it put out this morning.

It’s certainly a long way from May of 2005, when its high-profile co-founder, Arianna Huffington, was roundly mocked for launching the site. Today, she has seen her power grow as the site’s traffic and influence have.

The site’s namesake operates out of her California-based office in Los Angeles, while the company has its HQ in New York.

The Huffington Post’s traffic in September 2008, for example, quadrupled from a year before to 4.5 million unique visitors, according to comScore (SCOR). That performance made it the No. 1 “stand-alone political blog and news site,” besting Drudge.

“The cycle of print media is accelerating downward and there are not as many companies with a balance sheet and focus to do it right online,” said Harman, who will join the Huffington Post’s board. “The news market is really up for grabs in a lot of ways…and it is a good time for those who are viewed as authoritative.”

But, like a lot of advertising-reliant businesses, the Huffington Post is also facing a tough market and must show it can compete under more dire economic circumstances and build a sustained and profitable business.

This slug of money should give it a lot of room to do so, said Harman, who has invested in several digital media companies, such as Demand Media and Federated Media. He was also one of the lead investors in aQuantive, the digital advertising business that was bought by Microsoft for $6 billion in 2007.

“Who knows how deep this economic situation is going to be,” said Harman, who noted that he and others kept investing in aQuantive through the last Web downturn. “But strong companies that keep investing through a bad cycle can emerge as winners.”

Previous investments in the Huffington Post have totaled about $12 million. That funding has come from Softbank Capital and Greycroft Partners, as well as seed money from co-founder Kenneth Lerer and former AOL exec Bob Pittman.

Funding reports about the Huffington Post appeared about a week ago in the Times of London, with the post claiming a $15 million investment and expansion into investigative and local news.

But the most detailed posts were done by paidContent, which was the first to name Oak as the new investor and said the round was $20 million.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20081201/huffington-post-nabs-25-million-in-funding-heres-an-exclusive-boomtown-interview-with-oak-investments-fred-harman/feed/ 4 http://allthingsd.com/20081121/huffington-post-raising-more-money-for-post-election-run/ http://allthingsd.com/20081121/huffington-post-raising-more-money-for-post-election-run/#comments Fri, 21 Nov 2008 21:44:31 +0000 Peter Kafka http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/?p=1332 A nice corrective to the stories about venture capital drying up: Investors are still willing to write checks for digital ventures–particularly if they’re for media companies with hockey stick growth charts. The Times UK and PaidContent say that the Huffington Post has raised another $15 million at a $100 million valuation. Oak Investment Partners reportedly led the round.

I’ll update if I get any more info, or any kind of response from founder Arianna Huffington or her people. A source “close to the company” informs Silicon Alley Insider that the reports are “stupid and false” and “wrong across the board”; Huffpo cofounder Ken Lerer is an investor in SAI (see lengthy disclosure below).

That said, the size of the round and the valuation both sound plausible. And they reflect the rocket ride the site has been on for the past year or so (someone who should know better allowed the New York Times to float a $200 million estimate earlier this year, but no one takes that seriously).

ComScore pegged the site’s traffic at 4.5 million unique visitors in September 2008, up from 800,000 the year before. Meanwhile the DrudgeReport, the site’s conservative counterpart/model, was at two million. Both sites will claim their traffic is much higher, because that’s what every Web publisher says when confronted with outside numbers (this one included). But by any count, it has gotten very big very quickly.

The big question is whether Huffpo can sustain even a fraction of that growth rate in the aftermath of the election (and sell ads, too, though that’s another matter). Huffpo’s standard answer to that question is that that only 50 percent of its traffic comes from political stories. And indeed, there is plenty of real estate dedicated to topics like Lindsay Lohan’s love troubles, and those of Madonna, as well. And here’s a page called “Sex.” Guess what it’s about?

But there are lots of sites that can tell you about those topics–and indeed, Huffpo is primarily in the business of aggregating that stuff in an eye-catching way, not creating original content. And while the Huffpo people are absolute wizards at optimizing the site for search engines, and maniacally focused about tweaking the site in real time for optimal click-throughs, it really will be hard to sustain growth without political fervor.

If you had to bet on political Web sites that will grow for the next four years, you’d be better off placing a wager on sites that cater to conservatives/Republicans/etc. for the same reason that nonprofits of that ilk will raise more money during the same time–anger and frustration are great animators. Recall that conservative talk radio really exploded once Bill Clinton took office–and yes, this augurs well for Fox News, owned by News Corp. (NWS), which owns this Web site. (And while we’re at it, I most recently worked at Silicon Alley Insider, which has a loose distribution relationship with HuffPo. Phew.)

One hopeful note: New politics/stats/forecasting site 538.com, using an admittedly crude measurement, says both HuffPo and Drudge have been able to keep their post-election audiences.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20081121/huffington-post-raising-more-money-for-post-election-run/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20080709/demand-medias-richard-rosenblatt-speaks-and-says-hes-not-for-sale-to-yahoo-for-now/ http://allthingsd.com/20080709/demand-medias-richard-rosenblatt-speaks-and-says-hes-not-for-sale-to-yahoo-for-now/#comments Wed, 09 Jul 2008 11:56:19 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=2301

When I was in Los Angeles recently, I stopped by the Santa Monica offices of Demand Media, the network of social networking sites and apps maker, because of the rumors that I had heard swirling around that Yahoo was looking to purchase it for up to $2 billion.

Such a major deal seemed to me to be a rash one for Yahoo (YHOO) to make at this point, due to its current turmoil, as it seeks to find ways to socialize its massive content and communications assets more quickly.

As it turned out, reports of that possibility were greatly exaggerated, mostly due to a dinner that top Yahoo execs Hilary Schneider and Scott Moore had with its founder and CEO Richard Rosenblatt the very night I was visiting, which was not treated like a secret in any way whatsoever.

(I called Moore and Schneider, in fact, to tell them Rosenblatt would be late due to our interview, and I am guessing they would not have picked up for me if they were in the midst of prepping a big offer.)

Rosenblatt played down the idea of any Yahoo offer on the record, noting he was not interested in selling at this point anyway.

“There is a lot of potential here and I want to build a big company for the long-term,” said Rosenblatt, who has sold several. And while IPO plans are not in the near future, one imagines Demand could work toward that.

And Yahoo sources confirm that there has been no offer floated.

But there is no question that Schneider, who just took over all U.S. operations at Yahoo, is very interested in partnering in a significant way with Demand, because it has built a profitable company that creates a plethora of ad-impression-generating social networks of all kinds.

The bigger Demand sites are eHow, and Livestrong, a health-oriented site in partnership with famous cyclist Lance Armstrong.

The company also has a major domain registry business and recently acquired Pluck, which powers social networking features on many other sites, such as the Washington Post.

So far, gold-plated investors like Goldman Sachs (GS), Oak Investment Partners–and even a private investment from major Yahoo investor Gordon Crawford–have poured almost $400 million into the company.

Nonetheless, some wonder whether the patchwork of sites–many of which get content from other Demand sites, along with its many other disparate businesses–adds up to a multi-billion-dollar valuation quite yet.

Still, at some point when it is not in the free fall it is currently in, Yahoo might make a great purchase for Demand.

And it could certainly use the dose of energy from the ebullient Rosenblatt–who came from a paparazzi-clogged lunch with Armstrong, his latest squeeze Kate Hudson and her mother, Goldie Hawn, right before our chat.

And, in fact, Rosenblatt, who was former CEO of Intermix, which owned MySpace (Rosenblatt was chairman) and sold it to to News Corp. (NWS)–the owner of Dow Jones and All Things Digital–might indeed be the kind of bold, swing-for-the-fences exec Yahoo needs to reinvent itself.

But, as you will see in this long video interview below, he has some interesting ideas about where he can take the start-up first.

Here’s the video:

[ See post to watch video ]

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