AOL buys Huffington Post for $315 million

By Cory Bergman 

When AOL says it was investing in content, it wasn’t kidding. Spending $50 million rolling out Patch. Then another $30 million or so to buy TechCrunch. And then the bombshell announcement after the Super Bowl: AOL is buying the social media-friendly news site Huffington Post for $315 million.

As part of the deal, Arianna Huffington will run The Huffington Post Media Group, which now includes AOL properties TechCrunch, Engadget, Patch, Popeater, Moviefone, MapQuest and more. “Our readers will still be able to come to the Huffington Post at the same URL, and find all the same content they’ve grown to love, plus a lot more – more local, more tech, more entertainment, more finance, and lots more video,” Huffington said.

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HuffingtonPost.com grew 22% last year with 25 million unique users, making it one of the fastest-growing news sites on the web. The “HuffPo,” as the industry calls it, has also been at the leading edge in experimenting with social media, deeply integrating Facebook in the site. The new Huffington Post Media Group will boast 117 million monthly uniques in the U.S., with 270 million on a global scale.

In a memo to employees, AOL CEO Tim Armstrong called it a major step in the comeback of AOL. “The Huffington Post is core to our strategy and our 80:80:80 focus – 80% of domestic spending is done by women, 80% of commerce happens locally and 80% of considered purchases are driven by influencers. The influencer part of the strategy is important and will be potent,” he writes.

Both Huffington and Armstrong mentioned that local will play a big role in the combined companies. “(It) will create a scaled connection between global and local communities on one platform,” Armstrong says without providing details. “This will create a new way for people to get local and global information in a timely and entertaining way.”

Huffington Post has several local content verticals, from New York to Chicago, but stopped its local expansion after admitting it was struggling with its strategy. It recently relaunched its New York section with a city guide flavor. With all this talk about local, it will be interesting to see how that changes with the acquisition — and the fact Patch is now under Arianna Huffington’s umbrella.

Full disclosure: I work at msnbc.com.

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