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Huffington Post sets sights on Germany

The US news and opinion web portal Huffington Post is planning to launch an German-language edition within the next six months, it was revealed this week.

Huffington Post sets sights on Germany
Photo: DPA

The announcement was made by Jimmy Maymann, an executive with AOL Huffington Post Media, in an interview with German media news site Meedia.de.

The Huffington Post is ready for internationalization,” Maymann told Meedia.

The site founded six years ago by author and commentator Arianna Huffington has already started an international expansion. It is launching a French version this month, and already has sites in Canada and Britain. It is also mulling moves into Italy, Spain and Turkey.

Maymann told Meedia that the German operation will likely consist of about a dozen employees, while its content would be supported by advertisers and be free to readers.

Maymann also said that the German market may be ripe for tech-focused blogs like Techcrunch, which has been acquired along with The Huffington Post by US media giant AOL.

“I have no doubt that Techcrunch might work in Germany,” he said. “It’s a fantastic brand.”

The Huffington Post has been controversial in the United States because it generally does not pay its many bloggers. Critics have accused the website of driving down the market for journalists.

But since its introduction about six years ago, the website has been phenomenally successful, with traffic numbers rivalling the New York Times. AOL acquired the The Huffington Post earlier this year for $315 million.

It was reported in August that US daily Wall Street Journal, owned by Rupert Murdoch’s media empire News Corporation, is also planning to introduce an online German-language edition at the end of this year.

The Local/mdm

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