HuffPost expanding business to match traffic

In a video interview with Beet.tv, Huffington Post CEO Eric Hippeau commented on the hiring of Greg Coleman as president and chief revenue officer, who started at the news site yesterday.

With strong growth this year to around 24 million unique monthly visitors, "we firmly believe that we have the opportunity to build the brand that defines news and opinion on digital platforms" claims Hippeau. "This is a very large opportunity from a business point of view, so we are putting business infrastructure in place to allow us to be as big revenue-wise as we are traffic-wise."

Although traffic at Huffington is at an all-time high, greater than during the U.S. Presidential campaign, the site has not been regularly profitable and Hippeau announced earlier this week at the OMMA Conference that revenue from CPM advertising are nearing nil. Presumably the hiring of Coleman is to help HuffPost with just that, as he is an industry expert having headed global sales at Yahoo for seven years, which saw strong ad growth under his direction.

In the video interview (see below) Hippeau expects Coleman to help Huffington build a larger sales force, develop more sophisticated research and continue its growth in social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter. Hippeau places emphasis on mobile apps and emerging medias, which HuffPost is investing heavily in. The interview finished with an explanation of the editorial expansions to the site, describing the forty-plus journalists and editors who write original reports and "keep the stories alive" by monitoring audience comments (one of the best benefits of publishing online) and developments in related areas.

In all, despite the news site's mediocre financial performance, Hippeau seemed enthusiastic about Coleman's appointment and confident of Huffington's new digital directions. The interview is short and sweet, at the least quite informative.