Fast Fiction

I know some folks like to debate what a blog is. And I tend to be liberal with the definition.

But I’d like to point out something that’s not a blog. The Huffington Post is not a blog. It’s not a blog because it’s not interactive. There is nowhere to respond to posts except on your own blog. There are places to respond on the news bits they post, but there’s nowhere to post a comment to one of the “blog” entries.

Further, there’s no forum. I mean, if you’re not going to let people interact right there, a forum is a pretty fair way to do it. That’s what the NY Times does, and that’s a newspaper.

Anyway, I gave it a looksee and was a bit frustrated by it right away. The Newswire feature is nice, but I’m not sure they understand the way a blog works, if you correct something, you should note it in the post.

As an example, when they first launched, I saw a headline something like “Wired News Investigated for Plagiarism” or something with the word plagiarism in the title. Now, I’d read a story about it the night before and as far as I could tell it was an investigation into making stuff up. Surely a transgression, but a completely different one than plagiarism. So I commented on this. They fixed it, but left no comment or text to indicate the correction. So there are comments there (including mine) that kinda make no sense.

Mostly I’d just like to see responses to posts ... or at least trackback folks so I can find what folks are saying in response. Maybe they’ll figure it out. Or, as it appears, maybe we’ll all get a chance to be a blogger for Arianna. She’s sure got a lot of them!