Los Angeles Times writer James Rainey asks "Will the Huffington Post strategy pay off?" following an interview with founder Arianna Huffington. The company does not provide figures, he specified, but "three people who work in the field estimated that it would take in $12million to $16 million this year."

Greg Coleman, Huffington's chief revenue officer, aims to double the site's revenue in one year and build it six-fold in three, Rainey said. The site is looking at expanding its advertising space.

The Huffington Post has managed to increase its readership over the past year: Rainey pointed out that Nielsen NetView estimated just under 9 million unique visitors to the site last month, 27% higher than in the same month of 2008. It now has 89 full-time employees, eleven of whom produce original content. In an effort to move away from covering almost purely political news, as it did in its early days, the site has added several other topic-specific and local sections.

HuffPost has also embraced social media, partnering with Facebook to allow readers to easily share articles, and it created a popular iPhone application.

Source: Los Angeles Times