Yeah, it’s Inauguration Day, but you can read all you want about the big man and his big day just about everywhere else on the web, so in the interest of counter-programming, let’s talk about design.

More specifically, let’s talk about The Huffington Post. The site has grown into a new aggregating juggernaut with millions of visitors every month.

So why does it still look like a blog a couple of kids are cranking out in a basement somewhere?

Arianna Huffington has raised no shortage of venture capital, so money is no excuse.

She may be enjoying the ride right now as the hits continue to pile up, but at some point, someone is going to come along and do something very similar AND IT WON’T BE SO UGLY.

Arianna and crew have failed the Eat Media three-step mantra: Strategy. Content. Design. In that order. For a reason.

Their strategy is simple enough and follows on the heels of that other great news thief, Matt Drudge: make a lot of money by procuring other people’s content.

Huffpo’s content is a gimme: be the liberal Drudge Report.

But Huffington forgot all about step three: design. While The Huffington Post may seem to mirror the genius simplicity of The Drudge Report, it’s really just a mess.

— Jonathan

(Arianna Huffington photo from Wired and Matt Drudge photo from Media Bistro.)

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 20th, 2009 at 12:42 pm and is filed under Content, Editorial, News, Web Journalism. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.