Arianna Huffington drew on some of her celebrity contacts
early on to popularize the website. Do you think a person without her
connections could have been equally successful? What strategy changes would a
non-celebrity have to make to succeed?
I think that a person that doesn't have as strong of connections would have a much harder time being as successful early on. Mainly because it is harder to get into the spotlight initially. A non-celebrity could focus on driving as much traffic to their website as possible and having a strong presence in as many facets as possible.
Do you expect that AOL’s purchase of the Huffington Post
will have a largely positive or negative effect on its viewership? Name some
pros and cons, and compare them.
I believe that it will positively effect on the Huntington Post's viewership since they will have more funding, allowing them to hire the best journalists and cover more stories. It also can draw more users to both sites because AOL users will see it, and Huffington Post users will see that it is on AOL.
But since they now have more money and are a part of a large brand, people from the past may try and sue to get a part of the Profits.
Beyond Arianna Huffington using her celebrity contacts, what
other strategies did the staff implement to make this the number one blog in
the blogoshere? Can these same strategies be applied to other blogs? Explain
why or why not?
They focused on driving traffic to the site, and keeping the traffic by working on relevant, quality content that will put them ahead of other blogs, and news services. These strategies can be applied to any blog but most important is to have relevant, and quality information to offer the users.
What are the possible strategic marketing benefits and
drawbacks of the acquisition of the Huffington Post by AOL? Explain.
Marketing benefits for AOL is that they can easily publish stories that can boost their brand and make them look better, This is good for generating positive PR. A drawback is that since it is known that they own Huffington Post, articles about themselves could be taken skeptically by users.
