Few are as successful as the Huffington Post by their fifth birthday.
In five short years of existence, the web publication doubled its staff to 100, expanded its site to include a number of local and niche news pages, and most recently received 13 million unique visitors during the month of March. In honor of its May 9 birthday, Newsonomics media blogger Ken Doctor wrote a post for the Nieman Journalism Lab outlining exactly what it is that makes the Huffington Post so successful.
His six points all highlight what's unique about HuffPo, starting with its brand--the Huffington Post stands for "a high-pitched way of thinking about the world," he writes, and Arianna Huffington has never backed down from her feisty liberal assertions. The website is known for liberally partisan news, but Huffington is not apologetic about this fact, and it still manages to increase viewership year after year--up 94% in just the last 12 months.
