When Arianna Huffington launched The Huffington Post in 2005, critics wrote off the venture as doomed from the start. “The Madonna of the mediapolitic world has undergone one reinvention too many,” said acid-tongued Hollywood blogger Nikki Finke. “She is finally played out publicly.”

Ms Huffington had indeed already played many roles, from international socialite, to best-selling author, to California gubernatorial candidate, to political pundit on both the right and left. This latest venture, pitched as a blog for her and her famous friends, seemed thin at best and self-aggrandising at worst. Even allies were sceptical. “It seemed like an interesting, if not very probable, idea,” says Bill Hillsman, who ran communications for her 2003 campaign and writes for HuffPo.

Less than six years later, however, Ms Huffington has never seemed more comfortable in the spotlight. With the sale of HuffPo to AOL for $315m this week, she has affirmed her bona fides as a dealmaker and tastemaker, and will now assume editorial control of a vast collection of online properties, from the influential TechCrunch blog to the AOL homepage.