Business & Tech

AOL Buys HuffingtonPost Website

AOL buys one of the fastest-growing news websites on the Internet.

AOL, the parent company of Patch, announced Monday that it is buying HuffingtonPost, one of the fastest-growing news websites on the Internet.

Tim Armstrong, AOL chairman and CEO, named HuffingtonPost founder Arianna Huffington president and editor in chief of the new Huffington Post Media Group. 

"Things moved very quickly," Huffington explained in an article on the HP's website. "A term sheet was produced, due diligence began, and on Super Bowl Sunday the deal was signed. In fact, it was actually signed at the Super Bowl, where Tim was hosting a group of wounded vets from the Screamin' Eagles. It was my first Super Bowl — an incredibly exciting backdrop that mirrored my excitement about the merger and the future ahead."

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Both Armstrong and Huffington have been focusing on hyperlocal news coverage. AOL has developed Patch.com into the premier spot for hyperlocal news coverage in more than 800 communities across the country. 

"This will create a new way for people to get local and global information in a timely, informative and entertaining way," AOL stated.

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Huffington said AOL and HuffPost are creating a company that can have an enormous impact, reaching a global audience on every imaginable platform. AOL and HuffingtonPost reach 117 million unique visitors a month in the United States and 270 million in the world. Armstrong said the unprecedented opportunity exists to bring HuffPost's enormous success with sparking and stimulating online discussions around Patch's growing success as a hyperlocal news network that posts a piece of new content every nine seconds.

“The HuffingtonPost and AOL will occupy a unique place in the future of the Internet," Armstrong said in a statement today.

Huffington made it a New Year's resolution to become more "local," so it makes sense that she would agree to partner with AOL, who is seeing high unique visitor growth at triple-digit-year-over-year rates with Patch.com.

 "AOL's Patch.com covers 800 towns across America, providing an incredible infrastructure for citizen journalism in time for the 2012 election, and a focus on community and local solutions that have been an integral part of HuffPost's DNA. Check," Huffington wrote on her site today.


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