Drudge tweeted out of existence?
Well, well. This is cause for cautious optimism.
I'm not registered with twitter and I'm not a fan. It makes no sense to me. Plenty of people have pointed out that if twitter becomes the new cutting-edge source of information, it does not bode well for any of us. 140 characters of frequently spurious information?
However, I get that it is multi-sourced and certain sources will come to be seen as more reliable than others as time passes.
But here's the main thing: I never "got" Drudge, either. Forget the right-wing blather. Forget the traffic on his site. What I never got was that he was apparently the go-to guy for the corporate conglomerate journalist suits for years. Surely, I thought, they can't be that desperate and lazy.
I was, apparently, wrong.
So I'm probably wrong about twitter, too.
Either way, Drudge got a lot of mileage out of the Lewinsky thing, and he is apparently about to run out of gas. Not that I'm planning to register with Twitter or anything, but I never looked at Drudge either.
I'm not registered with twitter and I'm not a fan. It makes no sense to me. Plenty of people have pointed out that if twitter becomes the new cutting-edge source of information, it does not bode well for any of us. 140 characters of frequently spurious information?
However, I get that it is multi-sourced and certain sources will come to be seen as more reliable than others as time passes.
But here's the main thing: I never "got" Drudge, either. Forget the right-wing blather. Forget the traffic on his site. What I never got was that he was apparently the go-to guy for the corporate conglomerate journalist suits for years. Surely, I thought, they can't be that desperate and lazy.
I was, apparently, wrong.
So I'm probably wrong about twitter, too.
Either way, Drudge got a lot of mileage out of the Lewinsky thing, and he is apparently about to run out of gas. Not that I'm planning to register with Twitter or anything, but I never looked at Drudge either.
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I am/was a student in digital media and non-believer until recently.
June 29, 2009 2:23 AM | Reply | Permalink
Never underestimate the power of laziness. Why should they work if they don't have to?
Also, if the product is Twitter, shouldn't the correct verb be Twittering? They use Tweet to avoid the more appropriately descriptive Twit.
June 29, 2009 11:16 AM | Reply | Permalink
The post you linked to is one of those articles that thinks it has noticed a trend, but really doesn't have any empirical evidence to support it. The Politico is infamous for this.
I sure hope he's declining, but you can't have a discussion of the Drudge Report's popularity without the web site traffic data playing a key role. It may be right, but it just seems to be pure speculation. If it's been established that there is a decline in the DRs traffic, then it's fine to speculate about the causes, but one has to establish that fact first.
June 29, 2009 12:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
But that's the thing. The real impact of Drudge was not from the traffic on his site, but the fact that it was used as a clearing house by journalists who should have known better. Not the first-hand traffic but the BS stories that were picked up by the big guys. However, if it's true that his page hits were flat during the recent big stories (MJ, Sanford) then that's a trend already.
June 29, 2009 6:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
I remember Gerald Ford's administration and what a big deal it was that the White House had someone watching CNN all day.
June 29, 2009 3:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
I haven't read the drudge report in years. I used to prefer the drudge *retort*, which was a liberal version and takeoff on the original. There are probably plenty of wingers who read it still.
June 29, 2009 5:16 PM | Reply | Permalink