The Huffing-stuff post?
Posted on 11/25/2008 4:34:27 AM PST by Amelia
Last month, the Wall Street Journal reported an important effect of the 2008 presidential campaign: For the first time, traffic at left-leaning political Web sites overtook traffic at right-leaning competitors. The Drudge Report and Free Republic had the largest number of unique visitors in September 2007, but in September 2008, that honor went to the Huffington Post.
Political strategists have been analyzing the impact of the Internet on American political communication since at least the mid-1990s.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
I should note that the first paragraph doesn’t sound very complimentary but the rest of the article is.
You mean what we do here actually matters?
I thought this was a RPG!
The Left has nothing on the internet without George Soros.
The Huffing-stuff post?
I wonder how much money Soros is spending with HuffPo? It seems the left only wins when they either cheat or buy their way using rich liberals to pay for their success.
Did you see this? Talks about FR as the granddaddy of political sites, with the best software and a more grassroots approach than most sites...
Loved this part:
“Democratic Underground copied Free Republic....”
LOL
The Huffington Post....pfftt..
Bump
Otherwise Huffington has always been able to bounce me out after a couple of posts. Now they can't.
I'd suggest that a whole big bunch of their new traffic (a good 35% at last look) came from "our side" of the aisle. The guys at Huffington found they had to take their whines about my posts directly back to me at yahoo.com and boy did that make them mad. One young fellow/gal was crying about me "persecuting Arianna" and asked "why don't you just leave us alone".
Who’d a thunk it? :-)
Don't forget "...but with less powerful architecture."
What I thought was most interesting was:
Notably, the right has adopted the Wikipedia method more consistently than the left. MoveOn employs the top-down structure, as does the Huffington Post. Daily Kos blends the grass-roots and hierarchical methods...One can't help wondering whether the right's more successful use of such self-organizing systems reflects the concrete impact of libertarian ideology.
I think it's interesting that the right tends to be less top-down, even though the left claims to be more egalitarian.
Did you read anything other than the excerpt?
I’m mentally preparing myself for another FR overload and crash.
And the number of interesting non-political posts (science, arts, sports, literature) has almost flatlined since the Great Giuliani Purge. Causation? I dunno.....
I hadn’t thought about the downside of good publicity...
They restrict posting pretty heavily, eh?
I’ve never actually visited the site.
There are basically two kinds of influential political Web sites: sites that use a top-down hierarchy, whereby a central organization develops a message and disseminates it using social-networking technology, and sites that use a Wikipedia-type method, in which thousands of individual users contribute content and drive the message. This latter approach is exactly the opposite of conspiratorial.The earliest and most powerful right-leaning Web site, Free Republic, used the non-hierarchical method. Free Republic developed innovative Internet architecture to build a sort of Wikipedia of citizenship, a do-it-yourself kit for spreading messages and connecting them with local, face-to-face activism. The site's discussion lists -- which have global reach -- are fed by participants and connected by those participants to a plethora of state message boards organizing real-time, boots-on-the-ground political action. The influence of the site reflects the power of self-organizing social phenomena, not a conspiracy.
Notably, the right has adopted the Wikipedia method more consistently than the left. MoveOn employs the top-down structure, as does the Huffington Post. Daily Kos blends the grass-roots and hierarchical methods. Democratic Underground copied Free Republic's grass-roots approach, but with less powerful architecture. One can't help wondering whether the right's more successful use of such self-organizing systems reflects the concrete impact of libertarian ideology.
Aye, and it’s by our 2007 nemesis, Danielle Allen, of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, N.J.
This could be interesting.
.
That's not too surprising for a political website.
I went and checked out a bunch of the main liberal sites.
Besides the liberal twist on everything, I noticed that they are just too visually “busy”.
As for Conservative sites, besides the conservative commentary, which is great, I like Free Republic and DrudgeReport because they are simple, short on graphics and long on text (with a Times Roman Font), they load fast, allow you to find what you want quickly and allow you to stay focused on the topics at hand. The DU, HuffPo and others, besides being liberal, are just poorly designed. Any page with more than 3 fonts should qualify as a ransom note. I suppose they need the heavy use of pictures and graphics because their subscribers can’t deal with actually reading articles.
The left’s claims of valuing equality are a bunch of bunk.
Their whole ideology is based on the “unbounded” worldview that some are more enlightened and evolved than others and therefore deserve to tell the rest what to do.
While the conservative ideology is based on the “tragic” worldview of the human condition - that we are all flawed (sinners) and therefore our power over others should be limited.
What did she do in 2007?
Research on us.
How many of the Huf'npuf visits were from FReepers who wanted to see if the site is as sick as we've heard?
I do not think that the "new technologies" worked to that great an advantage for Obama, over the other campaigns this election cycle. Except in one way: "The Bubble".
Many of Obama's voters are in what is called "The Bubble". This is the virtual cloud place of shared delusion, an echo chamber, known as "The Bubble". It is Jon Steward, it is NPR, it is CNN, it is the major network news shows, the morning shows, the major "news" magazines and papers. It is all the wired-peer-group herding phenomena such as the TXT'ing of high-schoolers and collegians, fad clothing and music. It is the typical hypnotic NPR news announcer voice pattern, that says "This is the way it is.". It is NPR and CNN and Jon Stewart. Those last three being the major drivers of it, I mention them at the start and at the last. Jon Stewart's snarkism carries strongly in the echo chamber of The Bubble. Jon Stewart carried the election for Obama, more than any other single source.
In the bubble, Bush is an idiot cowboy. Palin is a dumb idiot hick moose skinner cheap porn starlet. Obama is a an unmatchable virtue, and a statesman of the highest historical order. Bill Clinton is a continuing bawdy joke, but a great President and a shrewd diplomat. Dick Cheney is evil incarnate, and constantly plotting how to look into peoples personal lives, when not getting us into wars nobody wants except Haliburton.
John Kerry is a war-hero and intelligent statesman. Valerie Plame is a super spy. Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity are haters, racists and bigots, as are all their mind-numbed idiot listeners who are all white trash trailer dwelling rednecks.
I could go one for hours. I did not even cover their sense of history, justice and truth.
The Bubble.
That's not too surprising for a political website.
Yes, it was the same way after 2000, 2004 and, to a lesser extent, 2006. After the elections people kind of burn out! Us old die hards though, we just keep talking!
I will have to respectfully disagree. He won because he used illegal contributions to the tune of 600 million to flood the MSM with ads, and he won because most of the electorate doesn't use the internet and relies on the extremely biased MSM for their news. The MSM and money won the election. To a lesser extent white guilt, acorn fraud and the biggest turn out of black voters ever were instrumental also. Still, we could have won had we fielded a conservative candidate, for even with all those disadvantages Sarah managed to almost turn it around. Without the partially phony financial crisis McCain would have won despite his lack luster effort.
I think the Republicans have a major challenge ahead of them to compete against this hypnotic effect generated in large part by the media. I've seen the media at work in the 06 election and I thought the Republicans would have had something to counter it. The only thing that might work is if Obama really screws up to the point where the media can't run interference or spin it away. Chris Mathews stating “lets make this work” about the Obama administration just shows that the media will never do its proper job. And the public thinks it gets the news from Oprah, Bill Mahers and Jon Stewart. Sad.
I agree with what you are saying — it all adds up. The technology played a part too where the grass roots (netroots) where all connected and very active. Technology (cell phones, Internet, blackberrys, etc.) played a big part with the communication, funding and movement of young people to vote — youths that probably didn’t vote for Kerry.
Soros comes to mind every time now because he said he would pay whatever it cost in the past to win. After learning how much he’s “donated” to Move On and Daily Kos, it seems a small thing for him to fund HuffPo along with the others.
And yes, I did read the entire article.
This is the first article in the mainstream media that acknowledges the power and reach of Free Republic. Funny that it took us being surpassed by Huffington Post for FR to be recognized as the powerhouse it is.
For a decade, as Freepers rocked the political world, the mainstream media, and conservative media for that matter, ignored or downplayed FR's influence.
We knew, but for reasons of bias, competition and jealousy, FR never got the same kind of recognition that is now given to lefty sites like HuffPo.
And it took Obama supporter Danielle Allen to write a fairly accurate portrayal of Freeper activism. Will wonders never cease....
Great post.
Good post. Cover away.
Except it ignores all political content on Usenet (which went back to a time before webpages).
Just because there was no reporting of "computers" (or even BBSes) in political policy, doesn't mean it wasn't out there or that it did not have impact.
Drudge made his name when someone slipped him a story that the media already knew about and willfully chose to suppress about an affair. And I have my suspicions that the media against supressed news of an affair (to keep John Edwards' campaign viable leaving Hillary to fight a 2 front war giving Obambi a better shot at the White House). Hillary's negatives were higher (the devil you already know) from both sides of the political aisle. Closed door discussions probably assured her of getting to (at least initially) pick much of the cabinet in exchange for not dragging out the fight to the convention.
I also find any notion of a “VWRC” to be utter Bullstalin.
Even the most famous “critics” of Clinton palled around with him this election cycle.
To oppose people politically does not mean that those who all share the dream of seeing the president prosecuted for his crimes are (A)working together or (B)engaging in something criminal or underhanded (is there a conspiracy to win an Oscar, for example?).
It was a simple way to slur his critics. Right wingers, antigovernment types, Timothy McVeigh, talk radio, church burners. It was all the same thing to Clintigula and the Pantsuit.
He turned the OKC bombing into a successful re-election in 1996. He was considered up to that time even by his supporters to be a one term president.
This place has gone downhill since the last round of purges.
I do appreciate this line: “The influence of the site reflects the power of self-organizing social phenomena, not a conspiracy.”
“Interesting” too that the Obama link in the article is directly to the donations page. Why didn’t FR’s link on the article take users directly to the money shot?
http://www.freerepublic.com/home.htm
https://donate.barackobama.com/page/contribute/dnc08splashnd
LOL, too bad the DUmpster couldn’t copy intelligence and rationality........
Interesting......so if you join via yahoo, they can’t kick you out easily?
I love the fact that you can find anything on FR......not just politics. Really fun discussions. I have noticed a drop in those interesting posts though as well.
Very interesting. I do think FR really needs to get with some of the Web 2.0 tools now though.
It would be very easy (I think) to add an icon like many sites do where you can instantly recommend an article for facebook, digg, sites like that.
We need to find a way to spread FR OUTSIDE the website beyond just emailing stuff or talking in person.
The left has done a much better job on this front.
There are ways to do it pretty quickly without overturning the message board setup of the site.
That’s sure what it seemed like.
Let’s all recall that the infamous Clinton WH “right wing conspiracy” memo was originally about trying to smear and discredit anyone who thought that the PAULA JONES case deserved to be taken seriously. i.e., the Clinton scum ala Carville, McCurry, Lehane, et al were trying to smear anyone who even asked questions about the Paula Jones case, based upon allegations which were later show to be TRUE and of course which led to the revelations about Bill Clinton’s WH trysts with Monica Lewinsky and everything else.
So, in the very period when WH Clintonistas were smearing every allegation as part of the “vast right-wing conspiracy” the reality was that the scum of the Clintonistas were feverishly trying to discredit every TRUE allegation.
This is an amazing article to go back into the time-warp of 1997 and see how the front page of WaPo was parroting Clinton propaganda:
White House Memo Asserts a Scandal Theory
By John F. Harris and Peter Baker
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, January 10 1997; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/special/pjones/stories/pj011097.htm
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