Arianna Huffington, who (for better or worse) transformed online news with her Left-leaning website The Huffington Post, announced she is stepping down as Editor-in-Chief to concentrate on her new Internet project, Thrive Global; a new lifestyle, health, and wellness site.

The decision takes Ms. Huffington out of the 24/7 news cycle her website helped create by constantly updating headlines and stories.  The Huffington Post attracted a lot of criticism in the early days after it went live in 2005, mostly because its practice of aggregating news (what practically every website does now), and packaging it in a way to be found easily by search engines like Yahoo and Google. 

And of course, The Huffington Post was notorious for not paying its bloggers.  Criticized by journalists who enjoy doing things like paying the rent and eating, Huffington found that there were a number of talented writers and celebrities who were able to forgo payment in exchange for exposure on a worldwide website.

"They laughed when Arianna sat down to the keyboard.  Blogs?  Celebrities?  But she soon proved her doubters wrong, building a formidable media - and political - force," said City University of New York media professor Jeff Jarvis in an interview with the Chicago Tribune - one of those once-influential local newspapers that has struggled to keep up in the digital age.  

The Huffington Post did eventually add paid staff, reaching 850 employees worldwide to reach nearly 200 million monthly unique visitors globally.  Arianna Huffington and her team sold the venture in 2011 to the moribund AOL for US$315 Million, with Arianna keeping a tidy eight-figure sum.  The deal had her staying on as editor-in-chief to continue to guide the site.  Last year, Verizon bought AOL for US$4.4 Billion;  Ms. Huffington maintains the takeover had nothing to do with her decision to move on.