What I like most about it is its civility and moderateness of language, which is in sharp contrast to e.g. the two biggest "left" blogs. It sets a good example on how people who are already successful in the public sphere communicate.

super job and very timely - thanks Steve!

The civility may be characteristic of the fact that unlike the larger left wing blogs it originates in someone who's relatively mainstream, rather than people who are closely affiliated with CPUSA and moveon.org - in other words the extreme radical fringe of the left.

Dave

I will agree about the moderate nature of the dialogue -- it does speak better of the site than the ones mentioned. People can only take screaming and invective so seriously, even when it's probably deserved. Even though I have some pretty hawkish opinions about criminal justice in particular, I'm mostly a left-leaning guy, so I wanted to like this blog. But I didn't. I didn't dislike it, either. To keep reading and think The Huffington Post is worth a damn I'm going to have to find something there that makes me slip out of neutral here.

Can anyone tell me what this chick is ranting about:
http://www.laweekly.com/ink/05/25/web-finke.php
The article is called:
Arianna's Blog Blows
Will this failure finally finish her?
by NIKKI FINKE

Dude, it sounds like Finke had a personal problem with this in some fashion. That's one reason I wrote; I found the site very blah, and not worth all the hype, but I didn't have any personal stake in saying so. Sounds like Nikki Finke is grinding an axe for some reason.

I do lean liberal, and I do like The Huffington Post so far. Much of it has to do with what has already been mentioned -- the civility of tone.

There are conservatives I enjoy reading also -- because I'm a lover of language and civil debate.

The criticisms I've seen are mostly petty. (Not referring to you, Steve.) I've seen it criticized for having both too many celebs...and not enough. (One guy mentioned the relatives of celebs and not the celebs as if to imply it was B list.) I found the latter blogger to be disingenuous.

I've also seen it called too well-written to be a blog. (Um, thank you?!) I've seen it said that since so many are professional writers they will not bring their A game to something free.

One person felt people would be holding back to save their reputations. He used Larry David censoring the infamous
"eff" word as proof. Has he ever seen Curb Your Enthusiam? The man is not afraid of the word...or any word that I can think of at the moment. It's called Narrative Style!

I think many people chose to hate it on priciple, and they're sticking to their guns.

"...and they're sticking to their guns..."

I agree with that. The true loathers of the site will break down that way. I personally felt I was in a good position to review it as I'd be politically disposed to like it, but found that as it stands at the moment, I don't. My real point was that so far, regular bloggers, average folk who start up their own thing and/or have something like blogcritics available to feature their work, people in my position, though not necessarily me, still do blogging better than these big names and corporate entities who keep putting their fat leaden feet in the middle of the game. That's why I used the little "blogga nostra" joke. It's our thing.

It's one thing if your blogging makes you famous, like wonkette or instapundit -- it's another when you already have a name and a platform elsewhere and go for it. I am very skeptical of the latter, but was ready to set that skepticism aside for Huffington Post. Heck, Huff's even in the name!

I found I couldn't, yet. I do agree with you and others who have made the point about a certain civility of tone. But I would be more interested if they had at least one guy or gal, famous or not, who was decidedly uncivil, crazy, you name it. There are a variety of voices to be found out there; I want Huffington to find them if I am to come back on a regular basis. And she's a professional writer, but I wasn't impressed with her initial offering.

I keep on falling back on our salvation -- as a species -- is people using our brains to make informed decisions. That is why I don't think celebs have an unfair advantage if people become critical thinkers.

I'm not one of those people that think famous people ha e no right to a political or activist voice...I am one of those people who believe that anyone's argument should rise and fall by it's own merits.

In fact, nothing irritates me faster (I'm lying actually -- there are things that irritate me faster) than someone discounting an opinion because someone is famous or saying celebs should keep their mouths shut. I think it limits the person discounting the view.

Does it bug me that I have fought hard to get traffic to my site, and all John Cusack has to do is show up? Okay, little bit, but that's life. (That's what people say!)

Steve, you sound like someone complaining that a newborn infant hasn't yet learned to crawl. Give it a few months.

"... newborn infant hasn't yet learned to crawl. Give it a few months..."

Newborn infants don't come into the world with a Hollywood publicity machine, opinionated celebrities, and giant budgets tucked in their diapers. They generated the high expectations and have yet to deliver. If this were a blog of unknown but perhaps gifted bloggers who got together and generated capital and publicity through clever marketing on a budget I'd cut it all the slack in the world. But when something is hyped, I want to see what the hype is about.

So I don't feel bad about spanking this baby, man. That said, you are absolutely right in the sense that any new endeavor, no matter who does it, will have to find it's groove. To that end I'll re-evaluate in a couple of months, I think that's only fair.

While I'm not able to take on the mantle of a liberal totally in the political sense, some of my beliefs where criminal justice and issues like taxation are concerned being pretty conservative -- socially I'm a liberal -- I would like to see liberal voices who are able to promote themselves the way Huffington Post has been able to do start to win the war of words the conservatives have been steadily owning for a while now. It's time for those who espouse solid Democratic ideals to grow some balls with their rhetoric without sounding like a bunch of whiny ranters. That's a hard trick to turn, and this blog could do it, possibly. But it hasn't done it yet.

I'd cut the personal blog of any anonymous joe or jane online a helluva lot more slack than this, Nick/Steve -- I refuse to judge a group blog that supposedly has this kind of firepower in its arsenal rhetorically by the same standards I'd use to judge your blog, or the weblog of anyone else who also posts here. I think it is fair to judge something like Huffington Post with a jacked-up set of expectations in mind.

But as I said, I'm not close-minded to what you were getting at, and will take a second look later.

Mr Huff has it about right. This thing is bland, white bread stuff. It doesn't have much flava, or color. Chris Rock, for example, would probably be a great addition.

Huffington needs to get people with something to say. I don't get the idea that most of these people actually have anything that they need to say here. Bill Cosby, on the other hand, has some stuff on his mind that he wants to share. Maybe his controversial opinions would inspire a bit of passion and flava in response from the whitebread.

Hell, a good Tim Robbins/Susan Sarandon pinko rant would be much better reading than most of what is there.

The famous names and pr budget will buy them traffic for perhaps a few weeks. Seinfeld fans will be drawn to the novelty of Larry David blogging, or Julia Louis Dreyfus.

However, if they hit a few of these columns, and the writing is just not particularly interesting, they'll move on. Let's see what their traffic looks like in 90 days.

Looks like some of the people there want it opened for comments.

without it being open to comments you will see that they are going to lose traffic real quickly

after all, wouldn't a lot of traffic be generated by "fans" of the individual posters getting the chance to interact with each other as well as forcing some of the writers to defend their statements and elucidate their Opinions further?

just my one sixth billionth's of the world Opinion..

what's yours?

Excelsior!

"...without it being open to comments you will see that they are going to lose traffic real quickly..."

I think you're absolutely right, gonzo. Without comments, which are part of the blogging picture for the most part, how the hell is The Huffington Post different from any other online celebrity endeavor? It is not. The interest in the thing will be considerably amped up if anyone can go tell Arianna she's full of crap or they think she's the bees knees on a given entry and the possibility of her even responding in kind is in the picture.

Blogs are, to a degree, interactive. I've seen some -- Loretta Dillon's misfitting.com for instance -- where the comments pretty much turn into message boards with full-length discussions. I think this would be a key element to The Huffington Post's success. I for one would radically reconsider my opinion of the blog if they made this one big change. Okay, maybe not radically, but I'd be more impressed by the thing, I think.

Al; I think your suggestions as to what is missing from the blog are spot-on. Anything -- Chris Rock would be a hugely funny and interesting element, it's true -- he takes no prisoners, and he's smart as hell. But anything to throw some gadfly-flavored spice into the mix. Blogging is about the non-party-line independent voices, if you ask me. The "made" blogger in La Blogga Nostra is the one who doesn't always feel constrained to tow the conservative, or the liberal, or even the "all blogging is political" line of bullshit.

Drudge, Instapundit, Wonkette, Andrew sullivan - what do they have in common? all are very successful - none of them have comments.

Merely an observation that comments are not needed for success.

I'm also wondering where this MFing "news blitz" was - I hadn't heard scratch about it until this post by Steve.

Contrast that with say, Revenge of the Sith.

I would imagine celebrities couldn't respond to every comment. They could get thousands asking for more info, challenging assertions, etc.

Also, I was at a CBS-survivor chat and some of the questions people were asking were extremely personal, or made comments about body parts/functions, etc. I can only imagine that if a celebrity allowed us to comment on a blog, we'd have to weed through hundreds of silly comments to find any of any substance. (oh, I'm your biggest fan, eek, eek!)

Here is a short list of links to articles about this site, articles published prior to it's launch;

• Huffington invites celeb friends to join blog -- April 29
• Syndicate to Offer Excerpts from Huffington's Celeb-Filled Blog -- April 25
• Huffington E-Mail Claims 'Answer to Drudge' Will Be Balanced -- April 20

What is wrong with you people? Your bully pulpit not large enough? Your movies, your magazine spots, your Larry King interviews, your ability to force your work and ideals on the public in the mass media, none of this is working for you? No, the fame, the money, the power...it just wasn't getting the message out, huh? Got to get your blog-groove on, too?

'Cause it's grassroots, baby. Blogging just screams "flyover people". Well, it's a free country. Blog if you want to, folks. Just don't expect the rest of us to fall all over ourselves in our haste to pay you heed.

Hmmm, in my initial post I said I skewed liberal, but took an online quiz which stated that the only subject I'm strongly liberal is on environmental issues.

I do like Huffington Post. I like anything which makes me think without being offensive.

The Huffington Post blog is now open for comments - not the fast and furious flood, yet, except on a few posts. It looks like it is selective - by author or by post, and only for newer posts. Thus, posts like Bill Maher's response to the Congressman are non-commentable.

It has become a regular habit to at least glance over the posts, but very few are of enough value to contemplate or link to.

I am surprised that your write-up did not give Huffington post a thumb's up. I am not a fan of theirs but I have had the liberty to read up stuff on their website and I think I liked what I read with a future note to self to revisit and read up more stuff. You are probably alone in your assessment. The last time I checked their alexa ranking, Huffington post was about 1,440+. You will agree with me that that is pretty much remarkable. How come the Washington post and other reputable businesses are fighting to advertise their. Also, I was reliably informed that www.malltropolitan.com is considering advertising their too. In case you didn't know, http://www.malltropolitan.com is a new upscale mall that offers upto 80% of MSRP of goods. Though nascent, it is gradually gaining reputation amongst shopper. Now you agree with me that the majority of bloggers and liberals out there do not necessarily agree with your assessment of the Huffington post. Mind you, I was told by a very close associate that Huffington post, because of its unabashed leftwing position, its value has now skyrocketed by over 2000% to a healthy estimate of plus or minus $200,000. I guess you never took these factors into consideration. Who cares if you wake up every morning to write a mumbo jumbo? so long as your mumbo jumbo is accepted guaged by its financial success. I await your inevitable response to this comment.

Sorry, I meant $200,000,000.00(200 Million) dollars. My apology for that typo.

My inevitable response: I WROTE THIS BLEEPING ARTICLE NEARLY 3 YEARS AGO.

Jeez. The Huffington Post in many ways is a radically different site today. I stand by this post as it was in 2005. If I were to write a review today, THREE YEARS LATER, it'd be very different. I now regularly read that site. Incidentally, I feel it stopped being anything like a blog about 2 years ago. If it makes Arianna feel better to call it that, that's fine. But it's an Internet newspaper now, and has more in common with the NY Times than a site like Blogcritics.

Because many sites change a lot in THREE YEARS.

I'm not really trying to be mean here, but your comment was written as if you thought I'd just posted this. I was astonished there was a new comment at all.