First, let me congratulate Arianna Huffington on selling The Huffington Post to AOL for a reported $315 million. Isn’t America a great place?
Arianna came up with a great business model. Create a place where liberals could tell each other how smart they were, where they could write blog posts without being paid, and where they could create a community of commenters who routinely attacked the evil Republicans…
and then sell out for mucho dinero.
It always amazed me that HuffPo bloggers (not the handful of well paid staffers, but the great unwashed) thought they were so special by being allowed to blog at HuffPo, when in fact they were being treated as unindentured servants. They were able leave, but they were working for free to help Arianna build a business.
Who knew that the website devoted to a living wage and moral imperatives actually manged to get liberal bloggers to work for free to make money for the boss-lady and her investment banking investors.
There’s a sucker born every minute….
——————————————–
Follow me on Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube
Visit the Legal Insurrection Shop on CafePress!
DONATE
Donations tax deductible
to the full extent allowed by law.
Comments
Best commentary about the AOL/HuffPo merger EVAH! This one's going right to that page I run on facebook.
Which proves that even the most sold-out Leftist is an unrepentant Capitalist at heart. They believe that OTHERS "can eventually make enough money." But selling Leftist ideology? – It's not personal, it's business!
It is that inner "all for me, and none for thee" rearing it's ugly head again. My Leftist brother would call Arianna a "sell-out". Heh.
BTW – your Video of the Day is most revealing. Why is exposing this type of hate not "news" for Fox News or any other major media outlet!? (That question is only partially rhetorical.) You have had so many excellent videos from MEMRI and others this past few days revealing the absolute hatred that is poisoning the Middle East and now the West. It is obviously easy to get this information, and without spin of any kind the story will create itself. No-brainer journalism exposing FACTS and TRUTH. Any REAL reporters got game!? It's all there – just do it!!
This damning video, in particular, exposes so much. A burqa-clad interviewer, speaking to a makeup-wearing, westernized female actress sharing how Syrians have hatred for Israel and Jews "in their DNA" and that they were spoon-fed hating Jews and Israel from birth by their mothers!! This is explosive, if anyone has the guts to broadcast it on cable or network news. Americans have been brainwashed with such lies by the MSM for so long – this is proof that the anti-Semitic, anti-Israel Muslim hate today is REAL and deeply ingrained, and is going to be "passed on to the next generations", as this actress states. Sick, sick, sick.
Does the term "useful idiots" come to mind?
So, none of the bloggers are going to be hired on by the AOL unit or get shares?
Perfect
Serves them right. Arianna used them all and made a boatload of cash. The moonbats rail against capitalism while getting rich because of it.
Interesting deal terms. All current HuffPo investors are cashing out, retaining no equity to participate in any potential future upside. If you believe there is alot of growth to come wouldn't you want to participate in it by taking part of the consideration in stock? AOL may turn out to be bigger suckers than the bloggers.
Let's assume Zsa Zsa's ownership has been diluted down to 15% by the capital raises over the years. Her take then will be $45 million in cash when the deal closes, plus she will have a large role at AOL, so she's going to get a lucrative employment agreement out of the deal, too.
I'm sure Zsa Zsa sincerely thanks all those liberal idealists and socialists who have been blogging for free at HuffPo over the years.
Didn't Andrew Breitbart help develop Huffington Post's business model before Arianna went full retard?
Couple thoughts:
– the hypocrisy upon hypocrisy here is stunning. Arianna embraces BIG CORPORATE and BIG CAPITALISM for her own personal financial gain. Not that she wasn't BIG CORPORATE already…
– None of her followers over there will recognize this hypocrisy, while still ranting and raving about how awful Big Corporate is.
– Where did AOL get the money? I thought they were in financial straits.
– If AOL runs HuffPo the way they've run AOL, HuffPo is doomed inside of two years.
– Professor Jacobson said: "Arianna came up with a great business model. Create a place where liberals could tell each other how smart they were, where they could write blog posts without being paid, and where they could create a community of commenters who routinely attacked the evil Republicans…"
Add to this that any post critical of Arianna or HuffPo or anything they really like is never allowed to show. I've tried it.
– Arianna should send Sarah Palin half the money she made. I said it before: that site is ALL PALIN ALL THE TIME. Even if you find a story without Palin in the title, you go to ANY conversation and type some small comment about Palin into the comments and the whole place goes completely nuts.
– Note what Arianna said: She'd be flying between her TWO homes in NY and CA. Isn't she like, Mrs. Environmentalism or something? How will her legions of environmental myrmidons spin this hypocrisy?
"Erickson came up with a great business model. Create a place where conservatives could tell each other how smart they were, where they could write blog posts without being paid, and where they could create a community of commenters who routinely attacked the evil Democrats…
and then sell out for mucho dinero."
See what I did there? I'm sure you must have been just as snarky and dismissive when Redstate sold out to Eagle Publishing, right?
"Our financial system is similarly rigged — it's become a bad carnival game where the rich always get the grand prize and the average American walks away empty-handed. We've gone from an economy where we make things to an economy where we make things up: default credit swaps, derivatives, CDOs and the like have turned Wall Street into a casino. Actually, a casino is fairer: At least you know the odds going in." -Arianna Huffington.
Meh. Afaik no promises were broken to the HuffPo bloggers. If, for example, they were being charged for their blogging privileges or if the blogs were deleted without notice, that would be a different story. Maybe a few of them will move on to paying gigs.
Since AOL initiated the buyout discussions, I don't blame Huffington for taking their money. If there's a sucker here, it's AOL; but if Huffington succeeds in her AOL job, $300M could turn out to be a bargain.
Iirc some conservative bloggers mocked HuffPo when it got off to a rocky start. Who's laughing now, and who's talking sour grapes?
(The above was written before I saw Tlaloc's comment.)
Will Arianna do what Obama said corporations should do and share the profits with the mindless drones who write for Huffpo?
@Van Halen: on your 2nd to last point – that is why, I believe, Sarah Palin is trying to trademark her name. She is both trying to protect someone from making money off of her directly (via using her name as a punching bag) and indirectly, as Arianna has been doing, and is doing to the tune of $315M.
AOL better use its technological expertize to scrub all the anti-Semitic garbage in the comments and blog posts on that site, keywords: Jew, Jewish, Israeli, Zionist, Lukidnick, Walt, Mearsheimer, Chomsky, Philip Giraldi, etc., etc., etc.
A disgusting site.
I like to congrats Arianna as well. She get top grades as a capitalist. A great majority of liberals live their own lives as a capitalist but demand everyone else to live as a socialist
Brilliant observation!
From the NY Times, "By handing so much control over to Ms. Huffington and making her a public face of the company, AOL, which has been seen as apolitical, risks losing its nonpartisan image. Ms. Huffington said her politics would have no bearing on how she ran the new business."
Her politics will have no bearing? AOL is apolitical? ha haa ha haaa hhhhaaaa!!!