WP's Citizenship 2.0 - DU mentioned

[NJmaverick]

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.

SNIP

Drudge was founded in 1994 and Free Republic in 1996. MoveOn was created in 1998 -- precisely to respond to online anti-Clinton efforts -- but it didn't gain real prominence until 2003, when George Soros invested. The other major left-leaning sites appeared after George W. Bush's election: Democratic Underground in 2001, Daily Kos in 2002 and Huffington Post not until 2005.

SNIP

... 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.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/24/AR2008112402119.html

[babylonsister]

1. Makes no sense to me at all. Traffic at right leaning sites

used to be higher than left-leaning? Then why are they always trying to catch up? And DU copied FR? :wtf:

[depakid]

2. with "less powerful architecture"

:rofl:

The Post really has become a laughing stock.

[babylonsister]

4. A big part of this story was parroted from the WSJ; that would explain a lot. nt

[Buzz Clik]

5. Jesus. The FreeRepublic is unreadable and unnavigable for the uninitiated.

Have they bothered to even visit the site?

[mckeown1128]

9. I was just thinking that....

freerepublic is a nightmare to navigate.... DU is vastly superior in design.

[liberal N proud]

8. That was more ridiculous than the copy bullshit

I have been to Freeperville once or twice when I was prompted by DU'ers. And frankly, if I had to use that type of architecture, I would lose interest very quickly.

[mwooldri]

12. Isn't FreeRepublic running Craigslist V 0.1 still?

I mean, Craigslist is bare-bones vanilla but even that's more intuitive than FR.

[lostnotforgotten]

3. "but with less powerful architecture" - are These Guys Smoking Dope?

DU is held and shoulders better than FR.

[SidDithers]

6. Free Republic's "architecture" is still based in 1996...

"less powerful" is a fucking joke.

Sid

[Me.]

7. I Call BS On This

It has long been acknowledged that dems 'own' the Internet. This seems to be a variation of 'the country leans center-right' meme.

[Trajan]

10. More successful ?

By what measure ? ....

The OUTHOUSE/PARTICIPANT ratio ?

Sheeeesh .... When I read shit like this, I have to wonder what world these people are living in ...

How is freerepublic's architecture 'more powerful' ?

Do they have outhouses in the forums ?

[snappyturtle]

11. The Free Republic looks as if it was set up last week as an after thought

to the election! It's SO basic, generic, plain, uninviting, difficult to follow responses....surely, the author got the two sites confused...As far as repub sites being bigger well, that's just a joke. It's set up like Dante's Inferno....lots of levels of hell.

[OffWithTheirHeads]

13. Since when did your mothers basement qualify as "architecture"?

Especially when compared to the wonderfully, asymmetric, Rococo beauty that is DU.