The Huffington Post is launching a “Twitter edition” that is intended to serve as an extension and a distinct entity from the main news and opinion site, the company told paidContent. The primary purpose is to harness the social networking aspects of the site to create a real-time news service for each of HuffPo’s 19 sections. The move follows the introduction of sponsored Tweets across a number of channels as part of president and chief revenue officer Greg Coleman’s goal doubling HuffPo’s revenue over the next year. But in separate conversations with co-founder and editor-in-chief Arianna Huffington, CEO Eric Hippeau and chairman Ken Lerer, I was told that the advertising part is secondary, at least for the moment.
Right now, the key thing is to get HuffPo users to accept and use the new Twitter edition format and the three executives are confident that they will. (Examples of the Twitter edition pages include tech, politics and comedy.)
“The idea is to produce an entirely separate edition from The Huffington Post with the same kind of content we always have provided—but super-charged, if you will, for Twitter users,” Lerer told paidContent. “We think it’s reasonable to assume that there will be more and more Twitter users; we think it’s here to stay. As more users get accustomed to it, this will be a way that users will increasingly seek their news from our site. I can see people coming to the main site and going to the Twitter editions. Eventually, I can see people just going to the Twitter edition instead of the main Huffington Post sites and verticals. Ultimately, it will end up being as significant an addition to The Huffington Post as we’ve made to date.”
At least at first, HuffPo readers will not be going straight to the Twitter edition. As Huffington told me, the Twitter edition front page is still in the works. “We want to see how people use the Twitter edition and that will influence how we create the front page for it,” she said. She described the integration of the Twitter format into HuffPo as a natural step for them. “Twitter has become an essential means of newsgathering and sharing. But readers want someone who can sift through all the feeds and curate the best, most relevant news. And that’s our role.”
She noted that editors of the 19 HuffPo sections, including the local sites, will be the curators of the corresponding Twitter edition verticals, which include politics, technology, entertainment and other channels. The tweets won’t just come from HuffPo regulars, Hippeau added. “This is our way of doing breaking news, using real-time Twitter feeds of people that we have followed, people who have a certain authority on the news we cover, whether it’s health care reform or the Academy Awards or technology or sports.” The site’s audience will also be able to enter their Twitter account IDs and tweet from the HuffPo Twitter edition as well.
“We’re one part social network, one part news content site,” Hippeau said. “So for us, the question has always been how to use Facebook, Twitter and other social networking tools and our content and integrate it with our advertisers. There’s a number of different ways we can do this. But for right now, along with everyone else, we’re still in the experimental stage and we’re testing a variety of methods and ideas.”
In terms of deriving revenue from the Twitter edition, Hippeau, Huffington and Lerer said that is coming soon as well. How soon? Hippeau said there might be some clues next week after Twitter is expected to formally discuss its revenue model at its Chirp conference. “We hope after they announce it, we’ll be able to partner with them on whatever they’ll be offering,” Hippeau said.
Speaking of the business, I asked all three how the company’s revenue growth and profitability are faring. We have heard rumors that HuffPo, which raised a huge $25 million funding in December 2008, was having some cash problems and might be seeking an additional round. All were adamant that HuffPo would not be raising more money anytime soon. “I hadn’t heard those rumors, and the idea that we need a cash infusion is completely wrong,” Hippeau said. Lerer added, “A significant portion of the $25 million is still in the bank, if we needed it and we don’t.”
While they noted that HuffPo doesn’t release its financial numbers, all insisted that revenue had doubled in the past year. Hippeau said he expected the company to reach profitability sometime this year. “The latest comScore numbers have us at 24 million monthly uniques and the panel-only numbers have us at 12 million, which is more than 100 percent growth over the previous year,” Hippeau said. “We’re confident that our business is solid and that we’ll continue to double revenues this year as well.”
Update: Here’s HuffPo’s announcement (pdf).
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