The Huff is serious about her business

Huffingtonpost.com founder and pimptress Ariana Huffington is getting all corporate on us. The Huff's website announced that it has hired a former big dawg from AOL to track or fluff revenue. New York, NY – December 18, 2006 – The Huffington Post today announced that James (Jim) Smith will join the company in January as Chief Revenue Officer. He will be responsible for overseeing advertising sales – including the company’s outside sales team, IAC Advertising Solutions – business development and marketing. Smith brings to The Huffington Post over twenty years of advertising experience in sales, business development and general management. Most recently he was Chief of Publisher Services at AOL's Advertising.com, heading up the group that manages business partnerships with the company's extensive network of web publishers. For most of Smith's tenure at AOL he was Senior Vice President of Partner Alliances for AOL Media Networks, AOL's advertising division. Continued>> Kenneth Lerer, co-founder of The Huffington Post said, "We are very fortunate to have Jim join the Huffington Post. He brings with him a unique background in interactive sales and strategic alliances, and has worked with numerous brands with loyal and passionate audiences. His strong ties with the advertising and marketing communities will help us to continue the Huffington Post's momentum heading into 2007." "The Huffington Post is quickly becoming a media brand of its own," said Smith. "I'm thrilled to join the team and have the opportunity to increase the advertising, marketing and overall business development for this fast growing company." Prior to Advertising.com, Smith was Senior Vice President of Partner Alliances for AOL Media Networks, developing strategic alliances with many of the company's biggest business partners including JP Morgan Chase, Travelocity, Best Buy, Sony, Nintendo and many more. Before that, he was Senior Vice President and General Manager at Sony Pictures Digital Entertainment, responsible for online advertising revenue for a broad variety of Sony entertainment brands including movies, television, music and games. The Huffington Post has become, according to The New York Times, "a well-known, oft-cited news media brand in the blink of an eye." It has become one of the most linked to news sites on the Internet. Since September the Huffington Post has grown 24% in unique users from 2.6 million to 3.2 million, and 55% in page views from 30 million to 48 million. The site combines breaking news, media commentary and user created content with more than 800 contributors from the worlds of politics, entertainment and media.

Huffpost to be a little more original

Ariana Huffington's mega blog Huffpost.com which was launched about 18 months ago as a platform for mouthy celebs to speak their minds will now carry original reporting on the site. Arianna Huffington, said yesterday that the site had hired Melinda Henneberger, a print journalist most recently with Newsweek magazine, as its political editor. The site has about 2.3 million unique visitors a month, making it one of the more popular blog sites. Ms. Huffington said Ms. Henneberger would hire a number of other journalists to begin producing original content, “with attitude.” “Now is the time to generate our own original content,” Ms. Huffington said. “It was always our intention, once we had the money, to hire people to do reporting.” So does this mean Nick Denton could end up loosing Wonkette editor Alex Pareene to the Huff being that he could actually make a living covering DC Gossip? Huffington Post Will Add Original Reporting to Its Blog [NYT]