Huffington Explains Her Soon-To-Be Whatever It Is

huff1.jpgI’m hitting pre-launch saturation point on coverage of Arianna Huffington’s soon-to-debut web whatever it is. I’m not sure what anyone gains by comparing it to the Drudge Report — that makes me think of a link list with intermittent “scoops” or is it meant to convey some kind of blue-state start page? Where does the group blog fit in? Is it a salon? (Not to be confused with the Salon.) My OJR colleague Mark Glaser digs deep for the answers in an interview with the star of the show before the slated May 9 debut.
Among the tidbits:
— “We’d like to try, if we can, to post, break and organize news in an interesting way and also add to the voices of the blogosphere on issues of interest.” No reporters, though: “We are going to be doing news headlines and linking to news stories and breaking news when we have news break.”
— “The site will be advertiser supported. By design, we are launching without ads so we can keep the focus on our content. Once we are up and running, we will turn our attention to getting ads.” Huffington left out the marketing part of the business model, the part that offers her and all the other contributors a spotlight for their other endeavors (book sales and the like).
— Roy Sekoff, an on-air correspondent for long-gone “Michael Moore’s TV Nation,” will edit the group blog.

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