Yesterday the Prince’s Trust Internet & Media Leadership Group held one of its regular members' lunches. Planned a long time in advance, it was to be addressed by Tim Armstrong – the CEO of AOL. But a week or so back he asked if he could bring along Arianna Huffington, the Co-founder and Editor-in-Chief of the Huffington Post which AOL bought for a rather eye-watering $315m in early Feb. See my post AOL buys HuffPo.
The addition of Arianna to the speaker list meant that the event was a sell-out with many disappointed people. To add to their disappointment, I can say that it was perhaps one of the most interesting, open and frank sessions the group has had. I am constrained in my reporting as it was a private lunch. But I turned from being a major sceptic of both Armstrong’s huge task of turning AOL around and the wisdom of his strategy buying HuffPo for such a significant premium (10x last year’s sales) into quite a fan. It was their desire, stated over and over again, to recruit top journalists, rather than be a rip-off aggregator, that really impressed me. Turning AOL into a top ‘content’ brand is an objective I can buy into. It fits with TechMarketView’s own (rather successful...) strategy. So it now comes down to execution. The chemistry between Tim and Arianna was also quite impressive. We all know how important this is if you are ever going to get a takeover – where the acquired CEO stays in post – to work.
I was seated with Arianna on my left and Brent Hoberman on my right on a table that consisted of all the top media players (and Francis Osbourne, the Chancellor’s wife) the conversation was, to say the least ‘interesting’. At first, you think she is a name dropper, but if you read her profile on Wikipedia you will quickly realise that Arianna is about the best connected woman in the universe!
As it is now public, I can report that the Huffington Post will produce a UK version this year. See Daily Telegraph. They have already hired 100 journalists in the UK. In typical Arianna fashion, she asked if I would write for them. I doubt that would be on but I was still chuffed to be asked to write for an 'organ' with 27m readers!