It was announced that Huffington Post will be purchased for $315M (after starting 6 years ago with an investment of $1M.) The deal reflects a bold bet on the future of online news.

Here are some great thoughts from AOL CEO Tim Armstrong during an interview with Charlie Rose. (Full script here)

The internet of the future, we believe, the next phase is going to be about content.

[and as to the criticism that this purchase is a hail-Mary approach]

There are no hail-Mary's. We have a very specific laser focused strategy of where the internet is going, that's why I think Ariana is at this table – because you don't get people like Ariana Huffington unless you have, I think, a strong vision.

The premise for us on the investment in Huffington Post is really about the belief that brands are about how people curate their lives. That the internet is only going to grow and become a bigger place that needs more brands and needs more transparency. […]

Hail Marys are when you have no chance to win – AOL is in a great chance to win and I think the combination with Huffington Post puts us in an unbelievably unique situation on the internet.

Charlie: What is the nature of the content that people want…? because, some observers of this and other content companies will make a difference between what they call “cheap content” and “quality content.”

The difference is, and I think the world gets confused on this, which is, there’s content platforms which allow you to create any quality and the scale you want and then there’s actually the strategy you have of what kind of content you have – and those 2 things get confused on the internet today. […] it’s how you use that technology. [My bold…] We believe in premium content and really serving consumers needs. […]

Silicon Valley has a very self-service mentality to it. You use their platforms – they create value off of you – we have a different model – and this, we're going to serve and help people with content. And I think you start to think about the migration and the next phase of the internet – the next phase of the internet is going to be in Silicon Valley – it's also going to be in New York and it's also going to be in Los Angeles, and it's going to be in London and it's going to be in Bangalore and a lot of that content that comes out of those areas is going to be driven not on self-service platforms but for curation as the world gets bigger people need more curation.

About the Author

I’ve had the good fortune to travel and work internationally. I’ve also had the good fortune to have grown up in New Zealand and have lived the American “immigrant experience” for more than half of my life. I’ve also had an unorthodox musical journey that led me to and kept me in Kansas City. Music, IT and travel became partners along the way helping me appreciate multiple worldviews and the concepts of cross-disciplinary approaches to life and work. My non-conventional experiences reflect my meanderings about this interesting occupational field. The beauty of having been in IT for 30 years is that our solutions become predictably cyclic while our problems remain the same. Culture is a topic I’m rather obsessive about. I firmly believe that it will help to usher in a renaissance in American business – oddly enough in the hands of IT.