Posted on 11/22/2007 4:43:01 PM PST by kristinn
FreeRepublic.com, the eleven-year-old conservative granddaddy of political discussion websites, was rated the most popular political website by Hitwise, an Internet data tracking service, for the week ending November 17, 2007 with 5.14% market share.
The liberal site, HuffingtonPost.com, founded two-and-a-half years ago, was the only site that came close to Free Republic in interest from net users, with 4.51% market share. In a distant third place, the five-year-old liberal site DailyKos.com, was left in the dust by Free Republic and Huffington Post, garnering only 2.57% market share.
The others sites Hitwise listed were, in order, politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com with 2.17%; townhall.com with 2.1%; buzzflash.com with 1.95%; politico.com with 1.9%; humanevents.com with 1.84%; realclearpolitics.com with 1.72% and democraticunderground.com with 1.69%.
Free Republic has received none of the fawning promotion in the mainstream media that its nearest competitors get. It takes no paid advertising, has no membership fees and relies solely on donations for its existence. Its founder and webmaster, Jim Robinson, is not touted as a political player like Huffington Post founder Arianna Huffington and Daily Kos founder Markos Moulitsas Zuniga are. The site has endured withering criticism this year by pundits from Bill O'Reilly to Patrick Ruffini. Yet, Free Republic survives and thrives as one of the most popular and influential political websites.
From leading the charge to impeach President Bill Clinton in 1998, to the 2004 exposing of the fraudulent National Guard documents that led to Dan Rather's firing by CBS News, to the recent deep-sixing of expansion of the S-CHIP program, Freepers, as members at the site are known, have changed politics in America.
Liberals despise them, some conservatives seeth with envy, yet none can deny that more than a decade in to the online revolution, Free Republic is still a force to be reckoned with.
15.14% of market share
How big is that pie? How big is that market?
Wonderful news in any case.
Great work, as usual, Kristinn.
Now FR is #3...Huffpo is #2 behind jibjab. Boooooooooooooooo
Don't forget the presidential election recounts in Florida in 2000. Freepers had a lot to do with that.
That explains why the site has been so slow lately, it was being hammered.
Oops! I didn’t look at the posting date. Sorry... :)
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