The elections were good to the HuffingtonPost, the political uber-blog. It’s audience in the U.S. rose fivefold in the last year to 5 million monthly uniques in October, according to comScore (see chart below). In what may turn out to be perfect market timing, the Times UK is reporting that the company is close to raising $15 million. In the past, it has raised a total of $12 million from investors including Softbank Capital, Greycroft Partners, Bob Pittman, and Ken Lerer.
As with all political sites, it is likely that the HuffPo’s traffic will dip now that the election fever is over. The question for investors, though, is whether its current levels represent a peak or, whether it can take advantage of its new-found audience to establish a solid, new traffic floor from which to keep growing. If you look at the HuffPo’s chart from Google Trends (above), it looks like traffic is at the very least plateauing so far in November, as you would expect.
Where does it go from here?
why do they need so much money?
it seem they are just raising money cause they can.
see trackbacks. it’s for developing local news and investigative journalism.
-tinyComb
I think a factor to consider is that we have a Democratic administration and Democratic Congress coming in to power. This could be either really good or really bad for HuffPo, who has really grown while a part of the opposition.
Interesting graph – seems to be an inverse representation of our country’s ability to make adult decisions.
Or an accurate representation of America’s ability to make good decisions.
Who doesn’t like fear mongering political views from a malignant naricissist’s perspective? Few things make my blood boil more, although her website does have a cool layout.
God bless Arianna and her MSIA congregation…
I can’t imagine this being a good investment. It seemed that they were writing more for Digg than for political junkies. They were so pro Democrat that now that they have what they want, Democrats in power, are enough people going to care about the site? I doubt it. Are they going to turn a ridiculously slanted political site into a balanced political site for everyone? I think that’s out of the question, why turn against your base and what made you so popular?
I think their traffic will plummet and the HuffPo will be just like the Olympics, people will only care about it for 3 weeks every 4 years.
@Sandra,
Fox News is heavily slanted right, as is Rush Limbaugh, and they both maintain their respective audiences. Granted, those are broadcast tv and radio respectively, but a consistent and growing audience is possible with any medium or political view.
Best,
Curtis
You want declining use?
Look no further than seesmic. There hasn’t been a new video comment added in more than 24 hours. It was the same yesterday, until Loic added his breathless gem that reminded me of that Tom Cruise bit where he’s talking about Dianetics.
Anyway, Loic, no hard feelings, but fact that google is shutting down lively is NOT about a recession, it’s about a product that simply did not gain enough adoption.
Let’s hope your next venture is even better!
FWIW: If you look at Compete’s “Velocity-Daily” chart (which is under the “Growth” tab) it shows a clear drop in traffic as of 11/10/08. That could just be temporary, and Compete’s not exactly accurate, but it seems reasonable to believe it’s directionally correct.
http://siteanal...tart=10/06/2008
After all of her press, why would she need the money. I smell epic fail coming, or someone paid back a favor
I’d like to see how many repeat visits users make and how long/ how many page views per visit. I’ll bet those are big #’s.
Soooooo Greedy!!
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Methinks the words “change.gov” and “gov2.0″ have something to do here.
Either way, it’s nice to see someone raise VC funding in such times.
I thought we used to read that HuffPo was going to close after the elections, and wither away like the state when communism is achieved.
What will they have to write about now that they don’t have Bush to kick around? Will they actually do *gasp* critical reporting on Obama and co.? Who wants to read a shopper?
Does anyone know what their business model is?
Hey just found http://www.huffingtonpost.tv . Someone has taken it