AOL buying Huffington Post

Newsweek is too mainstream. Think of a news magazine that nobody has read since 1995 and replace it with that.

 

Does this mean there could be a staff meeting led by Garry Howard and Arianna Huffington?

 

Who zee fuck is zis moron?

 

AOL just paid $315 million for a site that has done less original reporting in 5 years than Patch does in a day.

Good grief -- a news aggregator is worth $315 million, but news generators like Gannett and the like are barely breathing? What's going to happen to the Drudges and the HuffPos when the companies that actually generate the news for them to link to go under?

AOL is now like the NFL, but only if college football was teetering on the verge of extinction.

 

I didn't see it as a total aggregator because I often read the HuffPo contributors... but I'm so with you on your point.

HuffPo was a cool site... but I'm not sure the well-educated left-leaners who like it will appreciate the whole corporate overlord thing. The brand is already significantly devalued with this deal.

This reminds me of when Time Warner came in and fucked up CNN, a deal Ted Turner calls a horrible mistake.

Human beings are simply incapable of letting a cool thing stay that way. They must cash out and destroy.

 

Spot on. This is a fucking joke. Arriana is the fucking Wizard of Oz with this deal.

There's no way this doesn't end in disaster.

 

This is classic:


@SteveCase

AOL to Buy Huffington Post; Tim Armstrong says "1 + 1 will equal 11" Really? That wasn't my experience.

 

I think it's funny that they say Arriana will be in charge of all AOL Media and then include Mapquest.com in the list of properties.

Is there a way to infuse your editorial point of view into Mapquest?

 

To be fair, if Gannett were sold today it would be for a hell of a lot more than $315 million.

 

I had to check if Armstrong really said that. Yep, he did. An executive who trots out 1 + 1 equals more than 2 during an acquisition announcement -- that's the kiss of death, the "vote of confidence" of the corporate world. 1 + 1 always equals 2, and if this is Armstrong's concept of math, corporate or otherwise, no wonder AOL is in trouble (again).

 

This is the math that funded all kinds of internet startups before the crash. But it's not going to inspire confidence in many -- least of all Wall St. -- today.

Where's Lono with his Pets.com picture?

 

Mapquest: Always Turn Left.