Wow. There’s an announcement that takes the wind out of Super Bowl ad sails.

AOL (we’re back to all caps now, apparently) will pay $300 million in cash for the site, with the remaining $15 million paid in stock. Considering AOL’s current market cap is $2.34 billion, that represents almost 13% of the companies total value meaning that AOL is betting big on the Huffington Post. Let’s have a quick look at what everyone’s getting in this deal:

• The Huffington Post launched in 2005, primarily focused on politics. Today, they cover 22 news categories, not including local editions.
• To date, the company has raised $37 million, and started with $2 million. {CrunchBase}
• Quantcast puts the Huffington Post at 30.5 million people per month in the US, with an additional 9 million readers outside the US
• In total, that’s about $8 for each HuffPo reader
• The Huffington Post is estimated to have had $31 million in revenue last year, and is on track to do $60 million this year, nearly all of it from advertising

Under the deal, all of AOL’s content properties will now fall under a newly created Huffington Post Media Group, which Arianna Huffington will lead as president and editor in chief. That includes TechCrunch and Engadget (who’ve been butting editorial heads lately) and Stylelist among others.

More important, it really emphasizes AOL CEO Tim Armstrong’s goal of making AOL a content driven media business that’s less dependent on revenue from dial-up customers. In a memo to AOL employees, Armstrong notes:

“The Huffington Post is core to our strategy and our 80:80:80 focus – 80% of domestic spending is done by women, 80% of commerce happens locally and 80% of considered purchases are driven by influencers. The influencer part of the strategy is important and will be potent.”

If that’s true, we’ll take this opportunity to double down on our previous bets for the next networks likely to be attractive acquistion targets: Mashable, Sugar, Inc. and Gawker Media. Out of those 3, Sugar, Inc. seems to be wearing the biggest bullseye. The company is almost all women’s media (check), they recently acquired local deals site FreshGuide (check) and visual shopping search engine ShopStyle not only does well on its own, but also powers product searches and editorials on sites like Style.com, that are popular with influential people.

Considering that both the TechCrunch and Huffington Post deals were rumored to have happened within a matter of months (the latter being finalized when Huffington and Armstrong were in Dallas for the Super Bowl), it may just be a matter of the right introduction.

Before the Gwen Stefanis and P. Diddys of today’s celebrity fashion scene, there was Amelia Earhart. This may seem like something out of left field but it’s true;  Amelia Earhart, the world-renowned woman of flight, was a working gal trying to make ends meet and fund her dreams with a fashion line.
While working as a social worker with knowledge of sewing she would design and sew her own garments out of necessity, wanting to look fashionable without spending the bucks. As her dreams of flight began to get more attention she used this talent to promote a line sold a Macy’s. Essentially she was the first celebrity to use her fame as a promotional tool for her line, and in turn the profits would fund her flight endeavors.

Most intriguing about her designs are her innovative ideas such as “separates” where women didn’t have to buy a suit in one size but could mix sizes depending on their figure, all the garments were washable and it was a reasonably priced. She understood women of her time and the clothing was a reflection of a more active lifestyle. Needless to say many of her designs incorporated elements of aviation, sometimes in a parachute cord tie or belt, even using wing bolts and nuts for buttons.

Amelia Earhart has always been a symbol of strength and tenacity, but revealing this little bit of history is a true inspiration to the capabilities and surprising success to be had in anything we put our minds to.

Read the full story {Huffington Post}