

Why the Drudge Report is one of the best designed sites on the web - twampss
http://www.37signals.com/svn/posts/1407-why-the-drudge-report-is-one-of-the-best-designed-sites-on-the-web

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mattmaroon
This is survivorship bias. A ton of similarly ugly sites launched in 1997,
one, for whatever reason (possibly the content quality) survived this far
without changing. And then we get his "staying power" paragraph.

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olefoo
You also have to look at unique events, if drudge hadn't been part of breaking
the the Monica Lewinsky story, would the site have had the staying power it
appears to have?

He milked that story for all it was worth, and it got him hooked into the
right wing welfare club which led to some very lucrative alliances between him
and various radio hosts, which allowed them to use each other to push
dubiously sourced stories into the mainstream media...

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mattmaroon
Yeah, having broken that story was certainly part of it. It was the first
major story broken on the net.

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gibsonf1
Another great trick on Drudge is to group stories with opposing views next to
each other. For example, an article about the horrors of global warming
directly above an article on global cooling - this is usually done using the
subtle lines on the site for grouping - a good graphic technique.

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hooande
I think the biggest argument for the design of the Drudge Report is that their
biggest political/media rival, the Huffington Post, has borrowed their "one
giant headline and photo" format. <http://www.huffingtonpost.com>

I remember when the huffpo first came out, and it looked more like a
traditional blog. I can't help but think they kind of gave in and started to
use the ugly-but-effective-with-the-masses style that Drudge has been using
for the last ten years.

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jcromartie
You say "effective-with-the-masses" like it's a bad thing, but I think it
actually just works on a psychological level for anybody. You don't have to be
a mouth-breather to appreciate something that is simply straightforward and
readable. "Whitespace" and "clean design" are just aesthetic trends that have
little positive correlation with readability or usability.

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boredguy8
This is like saying McDonalds has the best tasting food because they sell the
most of it.

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cstejerean
Funny, there's another topic on the front page about the taste of McDonalds
food. <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=369249>

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boredguy8
Yes, there is. It's an interesting read. But McDonald's justifies their claims
for "best fries" by volume, Burger King justifies their claims via blind taste
tests. I'll leave it as an exercise to the reader to determine which is more
persuasive (independent of the biases any particular consumer has).

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fallentimes
While I don't necessarily agree with everything he wrote, it's hard to argue
with the results, traffic and revenue of Drudge Report.

I also really enjoyed his take on "Breaking News".

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profgubler
I love it when people say things like this. Remember, Drudge really only
writes headlines, and he doesn't claim to be an unbiased news source. He only
occasionally writes something, and when he does it is usually an email he got
from someone else.

Drudge is of the same concept of the Huffington post. It is news that is not
normally highlighted on television. Both, places are successful in pushing
stories they feel newsworthy into the main stream press.

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fallentimes
Say things like what?

No one was arguing against the points you made. When I said "he" I was
referring to the 37$ignals Dude - not Drudge.

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profgubler
No problem. I was referring to Drudge. I just often here people talk about how
people don't like him because he is slanted. That is the point of drudge.
Sorry for any confusion.

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aditya
Very similar story to the plentyoffish guy. One person, low overhead and
massive revenue.

I wonder if this is because they've been around forever and have a brand on
the web, or, if you could launch something with barebones design and replicate
their success NOW.

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makimaki
Well there's Drudgeretort.com (a similar site) and it doesn't have the same
reach or revenue. Matt Drudge's readership goes a long way back..

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profgubler
The thing with Drudgeretort.com is that it is just a knock off trying to
attack the original. How often is the knock off as successful as the original.
For those that would say that Google wasn't the first search engine, miss the
point. Google created something different and better, Drudereport just tried
to copy and paste their way to success, I however do think that Drudgeretort
likely makes a descent bit of money, just not as much.

I however, do think that it is more the name, and the fact that he has always
tried to show something different to the Main stream media that have lead to
his success. He also knows his audience very well. I really don't think the
design is the biggest element to his success, it is just a help to his
success.

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dhimes
I hadn't visited the DrudgeReport in many years. The DrudgeRetort actually
looks like (from what I remember) what the original used to look like.
Interesting that www.drudge.com points to the _retort_ , not to the original.

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lpgauth
Not to be a troll but the design is terrible sure it's organized (kinda) and
headlines have different style, etc...

But it's barely readable... It's so busy...

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unalone
But 37signals argues that the busy layout is what makes it thrilling. And they
agree up front that it's an ugly site. But they say that that's a part of what
makes it so good.

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a-priori
I rememembered reading something similar about pizza flyers, so I looked it
up:

[http://www.underconsideration.com/speakup/archives/002462.ht...](http://www.underconsideration.com/speakup/archives/002462.html)

They argue that pizza flyers are good design because they all fit the viewer
expectations about what a pizza flyer _should_ look like, and that the
cluttered layout tells the viewer "we're too busy making cheap pizza to make
this thing look better", thus implanting the idea that they're getting cheap
pizza.

Perhaps a similar phenomenon is at work here?

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unalone
Yeah, very similar. If you make something look stylish and snazzy and they
aren't expecting that, then your design is missing out.

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edw519
Drudge Report = a supermarket tabloid for cubicle dwellers

You know better but you can't resist.

He's found an virtual substitute for an outrageously successful physical
phenomenon. Not a bad way to build a business.

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adi92
the first screen i see when i get to this page gives me no indication of its
purpose.. only when i scroll down by half a page do i see any text.. dunno how
that is considered good design

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axod
I went (for the first time - never heard of it - seems pretty much a US
website - 95%+US according to quantcast), saw 3 images that looked stupidly
misplaced, scrolled down, saw some horribly illegible text (What _is_ that
font), and left.

Sorry, it didn't work for me.

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jimbokun
And now, Drudge is linking to this story on 37 signals. :)

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skmurphy
Linkbait pays off.

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wmeredith
Wait! I thought SEO tactics were bullshit/dead...

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sabat
Blogga please. It reads like a tabloid. Visual communication is non-existent.
The reasons people read Drudge are: 1) they love gossip, and 2) they hate non-
conservatives. It's not because of the (lack of) design.

I hereby openly dare anyone at 37 Signals to do a blog post that _isn't_
contrarian.

