Content Provider

The Huffington Post is a content provider. They provide news from various sources in addition to blogs commenting news. The website culls news from the Associated Press as well as other leading new outlets such as the New York Times and the Washington Post. There are sub-pages devoted to major areas of news like politics, business, and media. They also have sub-pages devoted to news that has generated large amounts of headlines such as the inauguration of newly elected President Barack Obama. Their revenue is generated by advertising and I assume some donations as well. The business strategy must work, as they hosted their own HuffPost Inaugural Ball. Then highlights from the ball were listed as its own sub-page, it was news after all. And of course more advertisements were placed on all of those pages as well. The Huffington Post was lunched on May 9, 2005 and has since expanded at a phenomenal rate. The costs of such an operation would likely not be as high as a print outlet such as a magazine providing the same content, since there are no printing costs like paper ink and printing facilities. Beyond the purchase of a domain name and server space, which are relatively cheap when compared to housing print infrastructure, the other major costs are staff to provide and search for content. All the research and investigative work would cost about the same as print with the added advantage of instantaneous disemmination to the public, as well as instant feedback and open discussion through use of public comment boards.