Oh, how times have changed. Six months ago, the arrival of the Huffington Post super-blog was greeted with scorn, derision, even laughter. Now, it looks like the skeptics have been proven wrong. Not convinced? Even the snark-prone FishbowlNY has written a resoundingly positive review of the Huffington Post on the blog's six-month anniversary:

"Congratulations, Huffington Post! Today is your six-month anniversary since your much-heralded and skeptically-greeted debut on May 9, 2005... Pretty decent six months, no? [Huffington's] bloggers have only gotten stronger, too; shrewdly [Arianna] has invited all sorts of good people to join her ranks, understanding that the next blog star can come from anywhere... and that new content is like crack. The breaking news, the links, the unapologetically constant taking the Bush administration task -- they're all working to engage the audience (the comments section on the blog are always overflowing).

No one could have fully predicted the rise of HuffPo, and Arianna (nice Vanity Fair profile this month, by the way!), mostly because it's resulted from nimbly responding to stories and shrewdly capitalizing on opportunity. At this rate, who knows where the h*** they'll be at a year."