huffington post

New York Web sites remain offline following Sandy

Hurricane Sandy may have passed the Mid-Atlantic region, but its effects are still being felt online.

The storm knocked out power and caused severe flooding across the Northeastern United States. New York City power companies pulled the plug on parts of lower Manhattan yesterday, shutting down Web sites without redundant servers. Many of those data centers remained down today, and power provider Con Edison said power likely won't be restored to Manhattan for about four days.

Those in Bk and Manhattan should have power back w/in 4 days. All others in areas served by overhead lines will take … Read more

Thrillist Media Group raises a whopping $13M

In what started out as a small newsletter to 600 friends has grown into a company worthy of $13 million in Series A funding.

Thrillist Media Group, a man-about-town newsletter and e-commerce company, announced today that it has raised this wad of cash with funding led by Oak Investment Partners that has been joined by Lerer Ventures and Pilot Group. What's more, Fred Harman from Oak will be joining Thrillist's board of directors.

Thrillist was co-founded by Ben Lerer who comes from a family that knows about media. He's the son of Ken Lerer, who co-founded the … Read more

AOL: It's not dead yet!

AOL just can't seem to catch a break this week, but a few pieces of bad news doesn't presage the demise of the Internet media giant.

First it lost CTO Alex Gounares, who wanted to move back to Seattle. Then it lost tech head Tim Dierks and sales exec Tim Castelli. And to top it all off, news leaked out that the struggling media giant is about to hand out pink slips in its West Coast office.

About the only piece of good news was the departure of TechCrunch editor Erick Schonfeld. The loss of the leader of … Read more

Andrew Breitbart, controversial Internet news pioneer, dead at 43

Andrew Breitbart, a controversial conservative blogger and commentator and one of the early proponents of Internet news, is dead.

According to CBS News and Breitbart's own site, the Los Angeles, native died this morning at the age of 43. CBS was told by the L.A. County Coroner's office that Breitbart died at UCLA Medical Center.

He had earlier collapsed while walking near his home. The exact cause of death was not disclosed.

In the mid-1990s, Breitbart was among those who recognized the Web's likely impact on media, leading him to begin corresponding with Matt Drudge, creator … Read more

HuffPo's Twitter account hacked

The Huffington Post's Twitter account was hacked this morning by someone who replaced the news site's usual story teases with racist and homophobic messages.

Around 11 a.m. PT, messages saying that "cloverfdch is a F#@%ing god! Hacked :)" and "New York Post rules!!!" joined the usual tweets with links to celebrity stories and animal photo galleries.

Huffington Post representatives did not immediately respond to a request for comment this morning but were apparently aware of the intrusion; the posts in question were quickly deleted from the site's Twitter page, although they still … Read more

Hey, book authors! Has Hyperink got a deal for you!

San Francisco-based Hyperink, a self-publishing company, is capturing the attention of wannabe authors. It's also got the attention of Lerer Ventures, a seed stage venture capital fund founded by Kenneth Lerer, the chairman and co-founder of The Huffington Post.

In the beginning, Huffington Post editors combed top search-engine terms and stories on politics, celebrities, media, and other trending topics. They then had their bloggers retell the stories (in most cases, better than the original version) in the punchier, HuffPo style.

Hyperink is similar. The startup, which launched today, aims to publish books about obscure and niche-specific topics, like "… Read more

Has content become advertising for advertising?

Since the advent of the Web, online publishers have had to create unique content to attract premium ad rates. Over the past few years, however, a flood of subpar content has seemingly taken over the Web, driven by high-growth sites such as Demand Media and the AOL-owned Huffington Post.

These types of sites have enjoyed surging traffic by creating relatively simplistic content, repurposing and "aggregating" premium content, and gaming Google's search algorithm. But this strategy faces a growing backlash and as a result may have hit its natural ceiling, and that could create opportunities for new online-media … Read more

The 404 891: Where we are total losers (podcast)

Writer Caprice Crane joins us in the studio today to tell us what it's like writing for shows like "90210" (2.0) and "Melrose Place." She also gets life-changing news halfway into today's preshow, so tune into Monday's show to find out how to win a copy of her book, "Little Luck."

Caprice also has a new Web site for self-deprecating stories called I'm A Total Loser, and she sticks around in the second half to give us her take on stories about social networking leading to drug abuse, a peer-to-peer alarm clock that smells like Chatroulette, and how social networking is blowing the cover of covert police officers.

The 404 Digest for Episode 891

Huffington Post named Caprice Crane the top 50 funniest on Twitter. I'm a Total Loser Newsflash: Social networking leads to drug abuse. Social media could render covert policing "impossible." National Lampoon names Caprice Crane " Twitter Queen." Follow Caprice Crane on Twitter.

Episode 891 Subscribe in iTunes (audio) | Subscribe in iTunes (video) | Subscribe in RSS Audio | Subscribe in RSS Video… Read more

AOL ad revenue up, but losses continue

AOL once again posted a difficult quarter as the company's revenue couldn't keep pace with last year's figures.

The online media company said today that it took in $542.2 million during the second quarter, down 8 percent compared to the $592.2 million it posted during the same period last year. That revenue decline held AOL in the red, with an $11.8 million loss for the quarter.

AOL's revenue declines during the quarter stemmed mainly from subscriptions to its Internet service. The company generated $201.3 million in subscription revenues during the period, down … Read more

Study: Facebook at bottom on customer satisfaction

Facebook may be one of the most popular Web sites around, but it doesn't seem to be one of the most loved.

The social network scored dead last in a new study out today that tracked customer satisfaction among a variety of Web sites and companies. Produced in partnership with analytics firm ForeSee Results, the 2011 American Customer Satisfaction Index E-Business Report analyzed how users feel about news sites, search engines, and social networks.

Although Facebook's reputation actually grew 3 percent from last year to reach 66 out of 100, the site was at the bottom of the … Read more