Monday, February 7, 2011

MapQuest Becomes Part Of AOL's New Huffington Post Unit

Denver-based MapQuest, the online mapping unit of AOL, has become part of a new content unit at AOL, the firm said last night, after it acquired The Huffington Post. AOL said it paid $315M for The Huffington Post, which is headed by Arianna Huffington. As part of the acquisition, AOL said it is creating a new Huffington Post Media Group, headed by Huffington, which will include managing sites Engadget, TechCrunch, Moviefone, MapQuest, Black Voices, PopEater, AOL Music, AOL Latino, AutoBlog, Patch, and StyleList. No details of how the move will affect AOL's MapQuest operations was announced. It's unclear how the move will affect MapQuest, which has traditionally operated independently of AOL's other web properties, and which has recently gone through an overhaul of its branding and strategy.