@aol @ariannahuff @huffingtonpost
Today’s announcement that Aol has purchased the Huffington Post is sending shockwaves through the online publishing industry.  The one time news blog which was initially funded in 2005 with as little as $1 million dollars was purchased by the online giant for $315 million in cash.  Under the provisions of the deal, HuffPo’s founder, and now extremely rich woman, Arianna Huffington will stay on as the President and Editor-in-Cheif which will mean she will manage ALL content delivered by AOL.

“By combining HuffPost with AOL’s network of sites, thriving video initiative, local focus, and international reach, we know we’ll be creating a company that can have an enormous impact, reaching a global audience on every imaginable platform,” Arianna Huffington said in a blog posting Sunday evening.

Aol & Huffinton Post Crew one big Happy Family

The announcement comes a week after Rupert Murdoch announced the release of his new iPad app called The Daily which is basically a virtual USA Today with no official city to call home.  This kind of movement within the corporate online space is something to be mindful of and may cause !Yahoo and Google, leaders in the growing online news publication space to make a move in response.

In the end it SHOULD mean that the way in which we are delivered quality news content not only gets better but faster and more of what we want, less of what we don’t.  The Huffington Post has always been a news outlet that prided itself on having no spin, no special interests and could appeal to the growing blog friendly reader while remaining a credible news outlet worthy of citation.  The acquisition instantly adds credibility to AOL and should once again put them on par with their competitors.