You’ve Got Props – Why I like the AOL Purchase of HuffPo

I have to hand it to Tim Armstrong and team at AOL for buying The Huffington Post yesterday.  While the $300M in cash they paid hits their bottom line pretty hard and they are paying Ariana Huffington $4M a year, it was a move that had to happen.  AOL has said repeatedly that content is king, and HuffPo will help fulfill that vision.  It flies in the face of the leaked document last week with had the AOL content strategy.  What baffled me about the leak is that it encourages robo content, but robo content is definitely not what a “king” will produce.

So here comes Ariana and The Huffington Post with their quality editorial staff and quality content (even if it is sourced from multiple locations around the web).  They automatically will help legitimize AOL’s content efforts.  AOL also made a smart move in making Ariana the editor in chief of all of AOL’s media properties.  I do wonder what happens to the team in place currently.