New issues are starting to surface with newspaper UI.  Most immediate one has to do with link-happy nature of blog posts.  Newspaper user experience is modal and sequential in nature.  While you may jump from one article to next, you are within the newspaper and reading them in sequence.  Mapping blogs to that model requires a lot of design work.

Recent posts referenced by an article is easiest to handle since they are likely to be in the same edition as the referencing article by embedding or by forward pointers.  References to articles in past editions is manageable if the referenced edition is in is saved somewhere — remote repository design discourages personal editions.  If it is not, then it can be treated like new posts.

Beside using a few key smilies to express likes and dislikes, a newshound icon could be used to allow readers to ask for more information on a particular story in future editions.  I thought about new pages being added to the back of an edition while it is being read, but I concluded that readers will get confused or tired — not being able to turn the last page sucks like watching inbox grow as you work through it.  One issue here is that some bloggers write about multiple unrelated stories in a single post.

These are just some of the issues I am dealing with these days.  What I strive to do in these sort of design situations is to find issues that cancel each other out.  For example, people want more control over how much time they spend reading blogs, so not being able to read referenced articles immediately helps in that regard.

In a way, I am weaving a bamboo basket, working the strands against each other in a pattern that creates a stable shape.