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The Huffington Post (often referred to on the Internet as HuffPo or HuffPost) is a left-wing online news website and aggregated weblog founded by Arianna Huffington and Kenneth Lerer, featuring hyperlinks to various news sources and columnists. The Huffington Post was launched on May 9, 2005 as a news and commentary outlet. Its roster of bloggers includes many people from Arianna Huffington's extensive network of prominent "friends." As of August 8, 2006 it was the 5th most popular weblog overall as measured by web links^[1] and the most popular "Analysis and Opinion" web site as measured by web hits.^[2]

Contents 1 Contributors 2 Investment 3 Awards 4 External links 5 Notes

In addition to regular (often daily) columns by Huffington and a core group of contributors (such as Harry Shearer and John Conyers) and Roy Sekoff, Founding Editor, the HuffPost has featured notable celebrity contributors from politics, journalism, business, and entertainment (Norman Mailer, John Cusack, and Bill Maher, to name a few), as well as other relative unknowns. Because of the prominence and access of its contributors, the HuffPost regularly publishes scoops of current news stories, otherwise providing links to selected prominent news stories, providing a left-of-center counterpoint to the link-heavy style of The Drudge Report. Compared to other left-wing blogs such as the expertise-heavy Znet or the long-established Daily Kos, the HuffPost draws a balance between hard news commentary and coverage, popular culture and celebrity opinion features. It is also known for the wide range of opinions expressed by members of the public who are encouraged to comment on the original articles. The comment section is home to discussions on politics, religion, topical events, world affairs, cultural and social matters. It has an open format, and rarely does a commenter get banned for his or her views or even a verbal attack. Long, pointless, ad hominem, abusive and endlessly repetitious comments are the only sure way to be banned.

A comprehensive list of contributors to the The Huffington Post blog can be found in its alphabetical Bloggers Index:

Among the celebrity or otherwise-prominent bloggers are:

Politics and non-profit:

Kristen Breitweiser Jerry Brown Andrei Cherny John Conyers Jon Corzine Donald Fowler, Jr. Mike Gravel Gary Hart

Lane Hudson Michael Huffington Robert F. Kennedy Jr. John Kerry Gara LaMarche Ed Markey Mike McCurry James McGreevey

Ari Melber Ted Poe Carl Pope Bill Press Justin Raimondo Bill Richardson Paul Rieckhoff Joe Scarborough

Andrea Batista Schlesinger Cindy Sheehan Andy Stern Josh Sugarmann James Talent James Zogby John Zogby

Print media:

Larisa Alexandrovna Eric Alterman Eric Boehlert Tina Brown Nina Burleigh Margaret Carlson Deepak Chopra Marc Cooper David Corn Danielle Crittenden Stephen Elliott Harold Evans Kathy Freston

David Frum Greg Gutfeld Sam Harris Christopher Hitchens Nicholas von Hoffman Earl Ofari Hutchinson Michael Isikoff Simon Jenkins David Kirby Jesse Kornbluth Paul Krassner Roger Lowenstein Norman Mailer

Tucker Max Irshad Manji Scott McConnell Patt Morrison James Pinkerton Dennis Prager David Rees Lew Rockwell Jay Rosen Douglas Rushkoff Karen Russell Robert Scheer Arthur Schlesinger Jr.

Michael Shermer Roger L. Simon David Sirota Rachel Sklar Gene Stone Lynn Sweet Tom Tomorrow David Wallechinsky Tom Watson Byron York

Performing arts and broadcasting:

Alec Baldwin Peter Bart Richard Belzer Lawrence Bender Bob Cesca George Clooney Bruce Cohen Walter Cronkite Jamie Lee Curtis John Cusack Larry David Ellen DeGeneres

Paul Feig Sandy Frank Peter Gabriel Larry Gelbart Robert Greenwald Christopher Guest Brad Hall Marshall Herskovitz Quincy Jones Diane Keaton Christine Lahti Martin Lewis

Julia Louis-Dreyfus Bill Maher David Mamet Merrill Markoe Steve Martin Adam McKay Roger Miller Mike Nichols Chelsea Peretti Rob Reiner Tim Robbins

Mo Rocca Haim Saban Harry Shearer Russell Simmons Tavis Smiley Patti Smith Cenk Uygur Steven Weber Jane Wells Lizz Winstead Dominika Wolski Bryan Young

Business and finance:

David Allen Joan Blades

Anand Chandrasekaran Sheldon Drobny

RJ Eskow Christie Hefner

Paul Lakeland Hilary Rosen

Academia:

Benjamin Barber Richard Dawkins Alan Dershowitz

Thomas de Zengotita Marty Kaplan George Lakoff

Joseph Nye Phil Plait Eugene Volokh

Elizabeth Warren Margaret Wertheim

Advance publicity announced forthcoming articles Wrom:

Warren Beatty Tony Blankley Andrew Breitbart Albert Brooks Denis Collins Barry Diller

Ari Emanuel Nora Ephron James Fallows Tom Freston David Geffen Paul Goldberger

Maggie Gyllenhaal Vernon E. Jordan Jr. Michael Medved Gwyneth Paltrow Paul Reiser David O. Russell

Liev Schreiber Aaron Sorkin Jann Wenner Mort Zuckerman

In August 2006, it was announced that Softbank Capital would invest $5 million in the online news site, which has grown dramatically popular in only a year, to help expand it. Plans include hiring more staff to update the site 24 hours a day, hiring in-house reporters, and a multimedia team to do video reports. Alan Patricof's Greycroft Partners also invested. The news marks the site's first "first round of venture capital funding."^[3]

The site now has invested in Vlogging, or video blogging, with many of the site contributors contributing via video, and capturing clips in the media and posting them on the site.

The Huffington Post won the 2006 Webby Awards for Best Political Blog.

Arianna Huffington was selected to the TIME 100 list recognizing the 100 most influential people.^[4]

• The Huffington Post website
• First-week index
• The Guardian: Uber-blog raises a celebrity voice