Huffington Post

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?

For a non-celebrity without connection I think it takes some great content and a little bit of luck. All it takes is one person with connections to read it and share it and your website could be off the ground and getting a ton of views. If you don't luck it will take consistently great content and will likely take a long time to build the blogs viewership. 

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

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I believe that it will have a positive effect on the Huffington Post. Some people will be mad that it went to such a mainstream website but overall there is much better exposure. It gives the Huffington Post much better opportunities for more people to view it and become daily readers.

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What are the possible strategic marketing benefits and drawbacks of the acquisition of the Huffington Post by AOL? Explain

Again some people that are really against the Huffington Post might no longer use AOL. But on the other hand the people that are daily viewers might become users of AOL. One of the drawbacks is the lawsuit against the Huffington Post about the uncompensated bloggers. It gives the Huffington Post and AOL a bad name until it is sorted out.