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.
Congrats, mods!
Air Amerikkka says they are mainstream and intelligent; the inaccuracies are mindboggling.
Congrats Jim, and you rock, Kristinn. I still need to travel up for a DC event.
Thank YOU MODS.
Above is a link to an explanation of their methodology.
"..Hitwise has developed proprietary software that Internet Service Providers (ISPs) use to analyze website usage logs created on their network. The anonymous data sent to Hitwise from the ISPs include a range of industry standard metrics relating to the viewing of websites including page requests, visits and average visit length..."
They go on to say they are audited to maintain the integrity of their methods.
A competitor, Alexa.com relies on installed toolbars on individual browsers. Data is only collected from those with the toolbar. Basically you volunteer to install spyware on your computer so they can collect their data.
Hitwise gets their data from ISPs. Everybody has an ISP and no spyware on your machine is required.
I put in my tag-line what I think of this site.
It just get any better, or bigger than FreeRepublic!
Well duh. Unlike most of its competitors, in the instances when FR serves up MSM/DNC leftist/Marxist/"progressive" swill, it is done solely for mocking and rhetorical evisceration purposes.
To the modern proprietors of progressivism liberalism leftism socialism Marxism communism compulsory amoral hedonistic collectivist anti-Americanism, FR is a nightmare.
The class of ‘98 was a good class, but I still feel like a newbie when the old timers start reminiscing about the days when FR ran on vacuum tubes and telegraph wires.
“Don’t forget Freepers efforts in the Sore-Loserman fiasco of the 2000 election.”
I was not a member at the time, but my favorite FReep story has to be “Get out of Dick Cheney’s House.”
Well done!!
Many thanks on this Thanksgiving Day...to Jim, to Kristinn, to the mods, to many friends old and new...
A big thank you!
May God bless us one and all.
I miss the days when we had to say "over".
out
I can't stop laughing (on the inside) about all the rich liberal bloggers over at Huffington Post prattling on about the evils of capitalism on a site that accepts ad money, while FR, home of the evil capitalists, relies on donations.
I just flipped over to HP, btw (maybe my third time ever) and noticed the leadoff columnist is whining that he has trouble feeling thankful because of the state of the world and the nation. The always-fashionable grouchy liberal pose never gets tired for them.
***My registration date is 12/22/1997. Even I’m getting old.***
You ARE old, pal.
Geez ... so an I.
Hooray for us! .................................. FRegards
Let me add my congratulations. You are right on the two dingbats getting press coverage. Just once again shows the bias in the press.
Thanks for all you do, too.
WE BE KEWL!
Don’t forget that we were right behind and a very big part of swift boating Kerry.
I’ll bet ole Danny IS pissed with FR ............................... FRegards
Related data
>>
Freerepublic.com is a top 5,000 site that reaches over 1.1 million U.S. monthly uniques. The site attracts a very slightly male biased, more educated, skewing older following<<
http://www.quantcast.com/freerepublic.com
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