(FROM THE WALL STREET JOURNAL 5/18/15) 

Huffington Post's Position

In Verizon-AOL Deal

In Verizon's merger with AOL, could the Huffington Post wind up being the odd man out?

The phone giant's proposed $4.4 billion acquisition is aimed primarily at shoring up Verizon's capabilities in mobile video and ad technology, areas where AOL has made a strong showing in recent years.

Where does that leave AOL's content -- sites like Huffington Post, TechCrunch and Engadget -- in the empire Verizon is putting together? Some industry watchers say it may make sense for Verizon to unload them.

"Verizon's interest in AOL is driven by their growth aspirations in streaming and mobile video rather than in acquiring news content," said Jim Friedlich, head of Empirical Media, a consultancy that advises media companies on digital strategies. "News assets like the Huffington Post or TechCrunch are noncore to Verizon and worth more to other acquirers whose core business is news."

Even before Verizon made its takeover bid, AOL Chief Executive Tim Armstrong often received feelers about selling some or all of its content operations, including Huffington Post, according to another person familiar with AOL.

Huffington Post's spokeswoman said she was unaware of any deal talks.

In AOL, Huffington Post is a big fish that gets plenty of attention. Its roughly $200 million in revenue last year accounted for about 8% of AOL's total haul. At Verizon, which is still fundamentally in the business of selling smartphone users monthly service, it will account for a little more than 1% of the business and could wind up adrift.

Verizon says it considers Huffington Post one of AOL's "key assets." Mr. Armstrong told employees at a meeting following the deal announcement that AOL's content properties were a key reason Verizon was interested in the acquisition in the first place.

-- Lukas I. Alpert and Keach Hagey

Snapchat Will Feature

Weekly Content From MLB

Snapchat, the mobile app that originally created only vanishing messages, is working with Major League Baseball Advanced Media to bring weekly baseball-related video content to its popular mobile-messaging service.

Using its "Our Stories" feature, Snapchat will curate content submitted by fans at baseball games around the country, package it, and push it out to users across its platform. The resulting "MLB Story" will be published every Wednesday or Thursday, representing the first time Snapchat has committed to regularly scheduled "programming" of this kind.

The goal is to capture the experience of attending a baseball game, according to MLB Advanced Media's senior director of New Media, Andrew Patterson. That could mean stitching together content featuring action on the field with video depicting fans' experiences in the stands. It may also include behind-the-scenes footage submitted by MLB's own social-media correspondents who are at every game.

No money is changing hands in the partnership.

-- Jack Marshall

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