DRUDGE RETREAD

Today witnesses the launch of blog tycoon Nick Denton's Drudge Report-wannabe, Sploid, which sounds a bit like a combination of the words "explode" and "tabloid." It certainly strikes one as Murdoch-inspired. And with an ex-Gawker editor and sometime blogger/would-be newspaperman Ken Layne at the helm, he's got talent. But at first blush, I don't think it poses any danger to Matt Drudge's decade-old web venture. It's not that it lacks for attention-grabbing headlines: "CONGRESS PORKERS WASTE $27.3 BILLION" and "ISLAMIC TERROR GOON SET FREE BY TERROR COURT!" are nothing if not punchy.


Denton also calls the politics of his site "anarcho-capitalist," which is intriguing, though I don't think he really means that. Even Ayn "Karl Marx of the Right" Rand wasn't that far out there. Denton tells the media-obsessed New York Observer: "Unfortunately, a liberal tabloid is a contradiction in terms. I don’t think it’s workable." Interesting, particularly because the article also profiles socialite/activist Arianna Huffington's forthcoming "Huffington Report" (which, with contributors including Warren Beatty and Gwyneth Paltrow, sounds just execrable).

The other problem is Sploid's layout: it's organized in a single-column blog format, which is generally a good idea, but the headlines are too compressed, with too many Gawkeresque ads between them, plus too-big fonts and — here's the key — not enough white space. None, actually. It's too busy. Drudge's single-banner top and tri-column main section gives the eye time to wander and places to rest, with enough space between the text and pictures so as not to be overly distracting.

To Denton's credit, he freely admits to the Observer that he won't catch Drudge anytime soon. But Denton has the money to be cavalier: "Drudge is very good. It will probably take us 10 years to catch up with his level of traffic." Meanwhile, Drudge has the popularity (9.5 million visits in the past 24 hours, 3.4 billion in the past 365 days) to be snide: "I don’t think that need is there. I think I fill that need."

On the other hand, any causal observer of the Drudge Report has surely noticed it's fallen off a bit. Drudge's last big scoop was the Kerry intern rumor about a year back, and that quickly proved false. He doesn't usually update until mid-morning EST on weekdays (living in Miami instead of LA these days, he could) and he takes most weekends off. He was hours and hours late to reporting Terri Schiavo's predictable death on a weekday morning, and hours late to post Pope John Paul II's equally-expected passing. Not to mention, Huffington just hired away Drudge's longtime friend and site collaborator Andrew Breitbart (ouch).

And yet, by all accounts Drudge's news judgment still drives water cooler conversation inside the Beltway and without. I don't read Drudge nearly the way I used to, but then I haven't heard anything on this week's Billboard Hot 100 either.

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posted by WWB at 6:09 PM |