“I don’t get why these sites want to copy Drudge right down to the font and logo. “
Well, I can think of a couple reasons. Drudge worked well for a while, before he went off the deep end. And people don’t like change. They like the familiar, what works for them.
But there are already several clones now. It is not going to work.
Matt Drudge sold it some time ago. My suspicion is that China owns it now.
One of the things that made Drudge so nice was when every other site was using complex web layout, huge banners, embedded video windows, stock tickers and other user interface elements, Drudge stayed very simple.
If you stick to mostly text, with a few images scattered around, it makes for a page that can be reloaded much more quickly.
One of the reasons I like FreeRepublic is that the layout is not distracting.