What the Verizon merger means for the Huffington Post and AOL’s biggest blogs

At its core, Verizon's $4.4 billion acquisition of AOL is all about online video. The tie-up gives Verizon access to AOL's digital advertising technology, which will help Verizon earn more money off the videos it hopes consumers will stream over their cellular connections. But along with AOL comes a host of very recognizable household brands, such as the Huffington Post, Techcrunch and Engadget, to name a few. One big question emerging is what Verizon will do with these content goliaths. For now, Verizon says everything about AOL will remain the same. Its chief executive, Tim Armstrong, will keep leading AOL, for example. But in the long run, the Verizon acquisition could have big implications for AOL's content properties. Apparently, the Huffington Post could be spun off from Verizon, in part or in whole. AOL bought Huffington Post for about $300 million in 2011, and it may now be worth more than $1 billion.

"The company is spending a fortune to step outside of its core competency" of providing telecommunications service and "into the content production market, where it has already shown a willingness to censor news coverage," said Derek Turner, research director at the advocacy organization Free Press. AOL's media brands will be free to write about those controversial issues even after the deal closes, said Verizon spokesman Edward McFadden. Still, SugarString raised questions about Verizon's content strategy that are likely to persist as the company forges even deeper into the media business. Verizon's merger with AOL will link together two increasingly important components of the Internet economy: Online content, and the pipes necessary to deliver that content to readers and viewers. All of this adds up to a murky future for some of AOL's biggest brands, even if Verizon has no immediate plans to change how they run.