Video: Huffington Post CEO: Revenue Must Match Site's Traffic

On Monday, veteran media executive Greg Coleman will get to work at the Huffington Post as President and Chief Revenue Officer.  His joining is part of an expansion the site's business operation, Eric Hippeau, CEO,  told me earlier this week.

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In this interview, he said that the plan is to put in place a business structure which will  match revenue with the site's enormous traffic, which he says is up to 24 million unique monthly visitors.

While traffic is surging at the HuffPo, Hippeau told an audience at the OMMA conference earlier this week that rates for CPM-based advertising are nearing "zero."  

He said the company is expanding its sale and research staffs.  

Mobile is an increasingly important platform and this week the company is launching a service for the Adroid phones, said in this interview.

Andy Plesser, Executive Producer

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Comments

[bioluminescence]

The message here is pretty blunt: One way or the other, the 24 million people who visit this site are going to have to start paying up. I wonder if management feels the content of the site is strong enough, original enough to maintain that base.

My own take is that this website has squandered a huge lead of 12 months or more in establishing a first class aggregation of original political commentary. Instead, its commentary is often pretty thin and unoriginal. Too many first drafts get past the editors.

There are millions of us who still regard the writing of the New Yorker magazine and the op-ed pieces of the New York Times as first class journalism that will always have a following. We just don't see enough of it on the internet.

[nellyb stl]

That's when we'll go to other news aggregates; there was a time when news was non-profit; there was a time when a lot of things were non-profit; even insurance (making money off of the unfortunate).
Might be a unique opportunity for the best of the best in reporting to go independent. We can only hope......­..........­.........

[KC the SuperDog]

Just do what IBM does, if you can't increase revenue, cut costs..... see how well the site does when you fire the US workers and hire cheaper ones from overseas !!!

[andygaus]

And if the revenue is successfully brought up to parity with the site's traffic, does that mean writers will also be paid?

[BeulahBell]

Seems rather ominous to this cynic.
Either no more free and breezy Huffpo, or tons of pop-ups?

[propitiousmoment]

Precisely.