Strategy Journal #2

AOL's Huff Post to Launch Live Streaming Network

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

FEBRUARY 2, 2012, 4:40 P.M. ET

(Available at http://online.wsj.com/article/APf065f68b34754d2d9af547a8273be86b.html)

This article discusses the Huffington Post’s new strategy to move into online streaming and provides an opportunity to evaluate its decision through the strategy canvas/value curve. Below is a potential analysis of its decision with respect to their primary competitor, WSJ (Note: Although the Huffington Post will be competing against Fox, CNN, MSNBC, etc. I merely used WSJ to illustrate the potential comparison on the value curve). Additionally, I used the following factors of competition: price, hours of original online content, availability, guest starts, number of view points, structured schedule, and customer interaction.

Using this value curve, we can see a number of interesting differences. First, the Huffington Post added a new factor of competition to make their online content more appealable to customers—customer interaction. As this article indicates, “[p]eople don't want to have you tell them the news anymore. They don't want to be talked to, they want to be talked with.” Consequently, the Huffington Post is dedicating a third of its screen to consumer interaction and dialogue. Second, Huffington Post’s content is all free (both written and verbal)—unlike the Wall Street Journal—and its hours of streaming content will be triple that of the WSJ and other similarly positioned companies. Lastly, the Huffington Post will have less star contributors and its schedule is going to “mirror the chaos of the web”—meaning, it won’t be that structured and might possibly annoy consumers since they won’t know when their favorite segment will be on. Ultimately, the Huffington Post seems to hope that by adding an additional factor of competition (customer interaction), it will be able to distinguish itself in the online content world and gain market share.