The Guardian has launched a new site, called Comment is Free.

This site is billed as a fusion of old and new media, where traditional commentary meets the brave new world of blogs. It follows the example of The Huffington Post in combining the blog format with professional contributors.

So, does it work? In my opinion, leaving aside that it may be too early to say for sure, it doesn't quite work.

The Guardian's main website has long been one of the best news sites in the UK and possibly the world. Whatever you think of the opinions expressed there (and I generally find more to disagree with than agree with) it has to be admitted that they've embraced the internet. Whereas other media outlets overload their sites with advertising, or restrict content to subscription-only, The Guardian has been making their content available for free, with tasteful quantities of advertising, for years. This has, in my opinion, been a shrewd move; it has made their site one of the most linked-to news outlets. The Guardian's profile amongst internet media consumers (that's us!) has been boosted considerably by this.

It's with this in mind that I find myself somewhat confused by CiF. Most of the people contributing to it are either Guardian writers or people who already have well-established blogs. Whilst the main Guardian site adds to the sum of available content, CiF doesn't feel like it's giving me anything I couldn't find elsewhere. I already know that Polly Toynbee wants Gordon Brown to lead the Labour party leftwards, Francis Fukuyama thinks that US success in Iraq is vital and that Madeleine Bunting has never had a coherent thought in her life.

Worst of all, in my opinion, are posts like this. In this case, it's a post by Glenn Reynolds, the closest thing the blogging world has to a superstar. His blog Instapundit is one of the most linked-to in the world and he is recognised as a leading figure in the blogging world. He is, therefore, a 'big name', and that's the only reason he's on CiF. I should point out, too, that I do think he has a point in his post. But there's something about reading it which leaves me, as a reader, cold.

For a time, I couldn't put my finger on it. CiF ticks all of the right boxes - both technological and content-wise. It's a proper blog, with RSS feeds, comments and all the rest. And the contributors are good, with the general standard of posting being higher than what you'd find on many (even any) other blogs.

Then the penny dropped. CiF is essentially a compilation blog, not unlike those 'Greatest Hits of 2005' CDs. In this analogy, Glenn Reynolds is Britney Spears, Polly Toynbee is 50 Cent and Madeleine Bunting is Beyonce Knowles.

What this removes is any real sense of context. CiF puts lefties like Toynbee and Bunting on the same platform as libertarians like Reynolds and David Boaz, without making much of a distinction between the two. The blog format, with generally snappier, shorter posts, gives little opportunity for the authors to expand on the larger themes behind their viewpoints. So we see that Reynolds thinks that self-defence would be good for citizens of Darfur, but not much of the principles which he derives this view from. Neil Clark posts an 842-word apologia for Slobodan Milosevic, free of the context of his own blog where his other views can be examined.

If CiF is a compilation, most blogs are like 70s progressive rock concept albums - built around a central theme, with issues explored from an explicit viewpoint. We might not agree with the point, but it's explicit and we can dip into this world for a time. Moving between, say, Harry's Place and Samizdata means being presented with more than differing opinions; it means being presented with differing fundamental mindsets.

Compilations work if their content shares some context. 'Greatest hits of the 70s' works because there is something tying the songs together, even if it's just nostalgia. 'Pop hits of 2005' works for similar reasons - they're the songs you've heard on the radio for months. But CiF feels like a mish-mash of content with no shared viewpoints on which dialogue can proceed. The content is presented as a set of articles for consumption, not mindsets to be explored. If someone else had launched this site, I might not have been surprised to see the Guardian itself lamenting the commodification of opinion, its decontextualisation from its source.

I may turn out to be wrong. CiF may develop into something truly wonderful, bringing genuinely disparate viewpoints together for dialogue. There's something quite refreshing about seeing such disparate commentators brought together. But the test will be whether they can debate with each other, not just produce rehashes of their greatest hits in isolation.