Huffington Post

When was the last time PR pros swarmed the Huffington Post? We’re guessing about a year ago, when it threw its contributed-content doors wide open. In any case, after 12 successful years, the Huffington Post is no more. Its owner, Verizon, this week renamed it “HuffPost.”

Once among the most powerful voices in the business, the Huffington Post no longer appears committed to tech editorial. Tech editor Damon Beres left in July for a deputy editor's job at Mashable and has not been replaced. "Tech" is no longer broken out on the HuffPo masthead.

A veteran IT editor wrote to remind us that some publications flag contributed and sponsored content more clearly than others. In this InfoWorld example, the author's identity is not seen until the bottom of the article. By contrast, in this Huffington Post example, readers see that the author works for Apigee before they begin reading.

We've learned more about Huffington Post's forthcoming, self-service approach to contributed content. Now in beta, it's called HuffPost Contributors. It seems to have two purposes. One, it relieves all HuffPo editors from having to evaluate unsolicited third-party content. And two, it consolidates all contributions in a single platform housed apart from HuffPo proper.