DAMN! AOL AGREES TO BUY THE HUFFINGTON POST FOR $315 MILLION!

You've got deal.

AOL has agreed to buy The Huffington Post for $315 million - combining two Internet heavyweights into a huge new media company that will potentially reach 270 million people globally.

The deal caps off a meteoric rise for the news and analysis website founded in 2005 by Arianna Huffington and Kenny Lerer as a more liberal alternative to the right-leaning Drudge Report. In five short years, the site has grown from aggregator to a news reporting site that averages 25 million visitors a month.

"Far from changing our editorial approach, our culture, or our mission, this moment will be for HuffPost like stepping off a fast-moving train and onto a supersonic jet," Huffington wrote in her column early Monday.

Under the deal, Huffington will be the president and editor-in-chief of a newly formed Huffington Post Media Group.

Though its finances have not been made public, Huffington says the site has become profitable - the Holy Grail for online journalism. The New York Times reports that The Huffington Post executives estimate that the Web site will generate $60 million in revenue this year, almost double what it earned in 2010.

Similar success has eluded AOL for a number of years. Once the dominant Internet service provider in the business, the company has struggled in the wake of its ill-fated merger with Time Warner.

AOL has invested heavily in buttressing its news content even before the Huffington Post deal - launching a network of local news sites under its Patch initiative and purchased the technology blog TechCrunch for $25 million.

"The acquisition of The Huffington Post will create a next-generation American media company with global reach that combines content, community, and social experiences for consumers," Tim Armstrong, chairman and CEO of AOL, said in a statement.



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