Huffington's vision prospers on blog

LOS ANGELES -- Arianna Huffington's business plan: start an online news site, fueled by blog reports from her celebrity and influential friends. And have them all work for free, in exchange for using her bully pulpit.

Nearly 2½ years and $10 million later, the experiment has nearly paid off. The Huffington Post is the fifth-most-linked-to blog on the Internet, according to measurement firm Technorati. Co-founder Ken Lerer says the Post will be profitable next year, when its audience could double, thanks to interest in the 2008 election.

The staff has grown from three to 43 full-time employees. And Huffington's list of bloggers has grown to 1,800 — including well-known names such as comedian/pundits Bill Maher and Harry Shearer, screenwriter/director Nora Ephron and actor Steven Webber.

"If you wake up and have something to say, great," says Huffington, herself an author, pundit, radio host (KCRW's Left, Right & Center) and former California gubernatorial candidate. "We're there for you to say it."

Maher says that when the site began, "The media world needed an anti-Drudge Report, a counterbalance with a liberal point of view. Now we have it."

Lerer, a former Time Warner executive who raised $10 million in start-up capital, mostly from venture firm SoftBank Capital, says the site was inspired by the role the Internet played in the 2004 elections. Now, he says, "You can build a brand in a year or two — just look at MySpace and Facebook. Years ago, something like this would take a decade at least."

An all-purpose read

While it's still a politics-driven, anti-war site, Huffington is trying to remake the Post into more of an all-purpose digital newspaper, with sections devoted to lifestyles, business, media and entertainment.

"We've discovered that even the most politically obsessed readers have other lives," says Huffington, 57, in an interview in her home office here.

Former CNN anchor Willow Bay has joined the staff as editor-at-large, overseeing the Living Now section, which includes articles on stress, sleep and motherhood.