Oh là là . Five months after the launch of The Huffington Post Canada, AOL Canada and the Huffington Post Media Group (HPMG) have announced the launch of Le Huffington Post Québec in January 2012.
“Le Huffington Post QuĂ©bec will be built by Quebeckers for Quebeckers and coverage will be exclusively in French,” Brad Cressman, head of content at AOL Canada, told Marketing. “This site is about attracting influential and socially engaged French-speaking Quebeckers who are looking for breaking news, intelligent debate and the latest opinion on the matters that influence their lives internationally, nationally and locally.” The site will use the same template as The Huffington Post Canada site.
Graham Moysey, general manager of AOL Canada, said in a release that the company is excited “to deliver a nationwide HuffPost offering to our advertisers.”
As part of HPMG, which has a roster of more than 20,000 bloggers that contribute real-time commentary, The Huffington Post Canada delivers Canada-specific news, opinion, business, politics and living content.
Cressman and managing editor Kenny Yum lead the Canadian HPMG team and are currently putting together a Montreal-based editorial team for Le Huffington Post Québec. While team size is yet to be determined, there are immediate openings for a managing editor, news editor and associate blog editor.
“We’re continuing to invest in Canadian editorial teams to deliver engaging and compelling stories, opinion, video, and more to the Canadian audience,” said Moysey.
“The site will feature AOL’s signature IAB Portrait ad unit (formerly Project Devil) and will offer unique AOL social ad products that will leverage our social platform and engage the HuffPost community,” added Cressman.
The Huffington Post Canada was the first international version of HuffPost. Since its May launch, it has earned double-digit growth in Canada. According to comScore, it now has more than 1.8 million unique visitors a month.
It has also seen a 26% increase in unique visitors from Quebec to the site since its launch; more than 200,000 unique visitors from Quebec now visit the site a month.
Le Huffington Post Québec is the second French-language edition of the site to be announced; Le Huffington Post France is due to go live before this year ends.
