14 DAY TRIAL // Former United Kingdom Prime Minister Tony Blair has agreed to write for the new UK branch of famous online newspaper Huffington Post.
Launched today July 6th 2011, Huffington Post UK is the newest branch in the Huffington Post network, which span over the US and Canada until now.
Besides Tony Blair, Huffington Post UK will also feature contributions from other UK celebrities like Jeremy Hunt, Sarah Brown, Ricky Gervais, Tracey Ullman, Imogen Edwards-Jones, Jonathan Meades and Kate Garraway.
Until now, Mr. Blair has not contributed any posts, but this may be the perfect medium for him to fight back against some criticism and scrutiny he may be under.
Huffington Post is famous for its celebrity blogger strategy, featuring in the past articles from famous international celebrities like Barack Obama, Madeleine Albright, Robert Redford, Neil Young, Mia Farrow, Hillary Clinton, Madonna, Jamie Lee Curtis, Alec Baldwin, Aaron Sorkin, Natalie Portman, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Russell Simmons, George Clooney, Scarlett Johansson, and many more.
The online publication was launched in 2005 by Arianna Huffington, and functions as a community central blog, with authors contributing posts for no remuneration.
Huffington Post quickly grew in size, recently surpassing the New York Times to become the largest online newspaper, attracting more than 36 million visitors per month, 1.2 million being from the UK, according to ComScore statistics.
Another study by Technorati, places the Huffington Post as the most linked-to blog on the web.
This success didn't go unnoticed, in February 2011, AOL agreeing to buy Huffington Post for a sum of $315 million.
Two months later, a group of Huffington Post bloggers filled a lawsuit against the company claiming that their content accounted for at least a third of the sale value.
Even if Huffington Post management and AOL representatives tried to dismiss its importance from the beginning, the writes' group is led by Jonathan Tasini, a renowned copyright laws fighter.
Mr. Tasini, a freelance writer himself, managed to successfully sue the New York Times in a similar lawsuit almost a decade ago, when written materials where being migrated to the newspaper's online version without the writers' consent.
A similar situation is present here, the writers submitting materials to Huffington Post, and not to AOL. This lawsuit is still under way in a New York court.