The Mother of all Blogs

Guest: cntodd

Yes, the "Huffington Post" otherwise known as Arianna’s celebrity blog whose tagline reads “Delivering News and Opinion since March 9, 2005” is now up and running. [Via Preemptive Karma]

Complete with posts from Walter Cronkite, Senator Jon Corzine, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, and Ellen DeGeneres, this “Mother of all Blogs” backed by plenty of hype is supposed to wow conservatives with shock and awe and send soothing vibrations of nirvana to liberals everywhere.

But as you may guess, I am a bit skeptical about such massive group blogger venues, particularly one with such a star studded cast.

I ask you, could a blog with Hollywood glamour and journalism’s all-stars from days of yore really be a benefit to the blogging world?

Blogging has a way of leveling the playing field a bit, connecting people who wouldn’t otherwise be connected, and decentralizing structures of power. Part of this ability comes from their openness to feedback from readers, something with which the Huffington Post does not seem equipped. By not enabling feedback either in comment or trackback form, the H.P. enshrines its status as a celebrity enclave, removed from the rank and file of the everyday blogger.

The Huffington Post: Good for bloggers? Good for Democrats?

CORRECTION:The “Newswire” portion allows comments, but the “Blog” portion does not.

[X-posted at Freiheit und Wissen]

Comments

[Chris Andersen]

Hey, I'm willing to give it a shot. The cast is huge and it will be interesting to see if Arianna can keep even half of them posting on a regular basis. I wonder if a few of them don't understand what they've gotten themselves into?

[carla]

I like the idea of lots of different people of varying intellectual, educational and ideological backgrounds writing stuff that's accessible.

So far, that's how this venture appears.

[TomK]

Yeah.

It's not supposed to be a blog so much as a drudge report format venture that deals in reality.

[Eli (creepandblink)]

The Larry David post is pretty funny... http://www.huffingtonpost.com/theblog/featuredposts.html#a000443

[mudkitty]

I wish her all the luck in the world. This is a lady who came over from the dark side. I think the comments sections will be expanded eventually. Maybe they'll even be a "letters to the editors" section someday.