Arianna's post not hitching ads despite rising interest in blogs.

Arianna Huffington's new blog, the Huffington Post, features well-known contributors like Al Franken, Norman Mailer and Christie Hefner commenting in free-form Web style on politics, culture and the media.

And unlike many blogs operated as a hobby by one person out of a bedroom, this one has a paid staff and hopes of making money by a first-of-its-kind agreement to distribute content to newspapers.

What it doesn't have is ads. On that point, it's hardly alone.

"I'm seeing (blogs) popping up, but I'm not seeing them attracting much advertising yet," said David Card, a senior analyst at Jupiter Research, a New York media consultancy. "You need either a large general audience or a large share of a specialized audience. It's not worth the trouble otherwise."

Huffington's blog, which launched May 9, has drawn lots of media attention, given the Los Angeles author's high profile as a pundit and former candidate for California governor. Huffington Post LLC, the Delaware-based company Huffington created for the site, has seven full-time employees in New York and Los Angeles, including editors and technical support people.

It's backed with funding from Huffington, Ken Lerer, a former executive vice president of AOL Time Warner, and other business partners. Huffington and Lerer declined to speak publicly about the Huffington Post as a business, saying it's premature to discuss profits or plans. But they have made it clear that they are running the Huffington Post as a profit-making business and not a vanity project.

Still, making any substantial money would be unusual.

Blogs or Web logs, remain mostly a novelty to investors. Most blogs require very little money to start up--just computer server expenses--and do not carry the promise of significant returns, said Brad Feld, managing director at Mobius Venture Capital, a Denver firm that invests in Internet ventures.

Mobius has provided financial backing to companies that develop software for blogs but has not invested in the blogs themselves. "The problem is, a pure blogging content business is a publishing business and venture capitalists typically don't invest in a publishing business," Feld said.

Many mainstream blogs do carry advertising, including the 12 blogs run by New York-based Gawker Media LLC, which is perhaps the best-known blog publishing company. Gawker includes Los Angeles-based Defamer.com, a celebrity-skewering Web site. Gawker's chief executive, Nick Denton, declined to discuss the profitability of the business. Gawker's advertisers include well-known companies such as British Airways Plc, Home Box Office Inc. and Simon & Schuster Inc.

Locally, LAObserved.com, a blog that covers the Los Angeles media and political world, carries ads from sponsors that include the Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles and the Society of Professional Journalists.

Advertisements also run on Rough & Tumble, a Web site devoted to California politics that is similar to a blog, although it does not carry feedback or original postings by online bloggers. Instead, it carries summaries and links to news articles.

Former television journalist Jack Kavanagh, who runs Rough & Tumble from his Sacramento home, said he does not solicit advertising but was approached by political consultants, campaigns and others looking to reach the site's politically connected readers. Rough and Tumble has about 6,000 daily readers but charges just $300 a month for ads. "It's not designed to be a moneymaking operation. It's just to cover costs," Kavanagh said.

Beyond advertising, Huffington expects some revenue through a first-of-its-kind syndication agreement with Tribune Media Services, a division of Chicago-based Tribune Co., that is expected to begin in June. Financial terms were not disclosed.

Top content will be offered daily to Tribune Media Services to publish in its member newspapers, according to John Twohey, the Tribune Media vice president for editorial and operations.

The Huffington Post plans to seek both smaller classified ads, as well as large spots from mainstream commercial advertisers. There are no plans to charge for access to the Huffington Post.

Blogging Boom

Monthly traffic at Web log sites is
exploding.
                   April    April

Site               2004     2005

Blogspot.com       3.5 *     9.9
Xanga.com          5.2       8.3
Livejournal.com    6.1       7.2
Typepad.com        1.5       4.3
Blogger.com        1.0       2.7

* Unique visitors, in millions.

Source: comScore Media Matrix