The Huffington Post is a news site that features stories on everything from politics and entertainment to health features and technology reviews. It was founded in the spring of 2005 by Arianna Huffington, Kenneth Lerer and Jonah Peretti. Huffington, whom the site is named after, serves as the editor and chief.
Much of the content on the Huffington Post is blog-based, and more than 1,600 people serve as unpaid writers who contribute stories. The Huffington Post’s homepage (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/) features a number of headlines on top news stories nationally and worldwide, in addition to popular blogs and opinion pieces from writers.
While the news stories posted on the front page often include a photo relating to the story, the opinion and blog pieces feature a small headshot of the writer. Additionally, below each headline or short teaser paragraph is a link to the comments posted by readers. Reader comments are very popular on Huffington Post stories. For example, a recent article posted with the headline “Obama Slams Fox News In Bill O’Reilly Interview” garnered over 1,000 comments. (Link: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/02/02/bill-oreilly-obama-interview_n_4702120.html#comments)
Huffington Post stories are also commonly shared on social media. The same Obama piece features a note at the top claiming that over 20,000 people had “liked” the story on Facebook.
AOL purchased The Huffington Post in 2011 for $315 million. The purchase created the Huffington Post Media Group, which introduced additional versions of the site in countries such as France, Spain, Italy, Germany and Japan. Additionally, Huffington, a weekly digital magazine featuring articles and multimedia content, was first offered in 2012.
According to Alexa.com, a web information company, The Huffington Post ranks 20th in the United States in popularity and 72nd globally.
Sources:
http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/huffingtonpost.com
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/1192975/The-Huffington-Post
Kelsey Knoche 