What does Huffington do now? Cut costs

The business model of The Huffington Post, the largest and most famous political blogging and opinion site, fell apart completely yesterday. According to Hitwise, Huffington's traffic grew by 21% from October 28 to November 4. It has been rising sharply over the last year as interest in the election picked up speed.

With the election over, Huffington's traffic is certain to drop sharply and all of the reporters and editors it has hired since the beginning of the year may not have much to do.

Traditional wisdom is that old media will have to cut costs to stay alive, but there are some very successful Internet properties that may have to cut more since their natural audiences are leaving them. Political sites may turn to business and lifestyle reporting, but those categories are already crowded.

The Wall Street Journal writes "History, however, indicates that news outlets that benefit significantly from an election suffer about the same amount when it's over, so the Web sites will expand now at their peril."

Looking at Huffington, audience measurement service Compete shows the political website's traffic up 711% for the year ending in September. That number probably got even more impressive last month. In September, Huffington had 5.3 million visitors. In 2008, that figure was never above one million.

With all of the audience that Huffington is almost certain to lose it will also part with most of its advertising. And, with that, the large staff it will not be able to afford.

Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 247wallst.com.