What is The Huffington Post?

The Huffington Post - in its website header - says it's 'The internet newspaper: news blogs video community'. There are all sorts of oxymorons going on there, a newspaper is surely something which exists on paper? And how can a newspaper contain video? Is there really such a thing as an 'internet newspaper'?

Its tagline promises multimedia and it delivers. Not only does it have video attached to stories (as well as an entire video section), there are photos and graphics everywhere.

While there aren't any hyperlinks within the copy, articles like this one feature external links at the end. There is also an extensive external link section at the bottom of the section pages, subdivided into news websites and blogs and by category (e.g. politics, media, business etc.).

The website has active bloggers and these are integrated into the website's sections (see the left-hand side of this and every other section page) as well as the specific blog section. Users can comment on articles, and along the side of the section pages, articles are arranged by 'popularity'. They can also connect via their Twitter, Facebook, Google and Yahoo! accounts. It was the only website I've seen so far offering to connect via Google Buzz. I couldn't find any Flash-based interactive modules.

I don't think of The Huffington Post as a 'newspaper', I think of it as a very good news website. But considering that journalism itself has been reinvented with the growth of the internet, perhaps the time will come we will need to reinvent what constitutes a newspaper.