Huffington Post

Yet another (paid) opinion piece about Huffington Post’s blogger relations

The editor-in-chief of Huffington Post UK caused a mini Twitter storm last week when he told Radio 4 that unpaid journalism is more authentic, more real than a paid column.

This ignited pretty much the same debate that raged when HuffPo was sold to AOL in 2011. Many unpaid bloggers suddenly felt aggrieved that their work had lined Arianna’s pockets.

But in 2016, this gaffe is more a lesson in PR than it is a chance to re-examine the economics of publishing.

Can you beat last year’s winners of The Digitals?

Entries for The Digitals 2014 continue to roll-in as the deadline looms ever closer. The best submissions feature inspiring and innovative case studies from the digital world.

It’s not too late to enter though. You have until 24 September 2014 for your chance to showcase your team’s finest work to the global digital and ecommerce community. Just click here for the entry form.

Perhaps you need some extra encouragement? A challenge, if you will. 

Here I’ll be taking a look at last year’s winners, highlighting their triumphant victories and throwing down the gauntlet in order to see you puff up your chest, roll up your sleeves, remove your spectacles and say, “Oh yeah! Well we’ll see who’s the best!”

Here are last year’s most impressive victors. Now show them who’s boss.

Stats: How happy are our social networks?

The latest update to Econsultancy’s Internet Statistics Compendium sees the usual batch of hand-picked data gems.

This month, the Social Media sub-report of the compendium saw some particularly interesting stats about engagement (from SocialFlow), how US Fortune 500 companies are using social networks and blogs (Umass) and research which will likely be of interest to businesses and household web-users alike released in August by Fractl.

Rumour: CNN to purchase Mashable for $200m

The next big (read: nine-figure) consumer internet acquisition may involve an unexpected buyer – CNN.

According to Reuters’ Felix Salmon, the Time Warner-owned cable news network could announce as early as Tuesday that it is acquiring Mashable, one of the most popular tech/social media blogs for a figure that could be north of $200m.

Huffington Post follows Forbes into branded blogging

The Huffington Post UK is launching branded blogs at the start of next year, mirroring a service already offered by its US counterpart and Forbes.

The US version of Huffington Post already offers brands the chance to blog, providing a new form of advertising to clients like BMW.

The HuffPo’s lesson: know why you’re doing what you’re doing

After being bought by AOL for $315m, it’s safe to call The Huffington Post one of the most successful new media ventures to date.

The HuffPo’s rapid rise and nine-figure acquisition is all the more
incredible because of the fact that much of the HuffPo’s content is
created by unpaid contributors.

Lured by the promise of being able to
write for a massive audience, experienced and often-recognizable
individuals helped Arianna Huffington build the HuffPo into what it is
today.

AOL and The Huffington Post: you’ve got fail?

Yesterday’s surprise announcement that AOL is buying The Huffington Post for $315m sent shockwaves through the blogosphere.

The deal is not only one of the biggest in the consumer internet space
in the past several years, it’s one of the biggest online publishing
acquisitions ever involving a ‘blog‘.