Why the Drudge Report is one of the best designed sites on the web | Hacker News Reader

Why the Drudge Report is one of the best designed sites on the web

37signals.com

80 pointstwampss36 comments

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.

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...

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

Moreover, the article didn't convince me that DR success is so much related to its design.

There are a bunch of reasons that have nothing to do with ACTUAL design used to support the argument. For example, it can be maintained by one guy...it probably uses a CMS...big deal. Doesn't mean it is well designed.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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).

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".

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.

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.

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.

agree. can't argue with the results, traffic, and revenue of Drudge report.

Design can mean a lot of things, but the kind of "design" i care about when presenting information can be evaluated independently of its "results, traffic, and revenue".

Results, maybe. Not sure why Jason makes such a point about the success of the site. Seems almost like "because its so popular, it must be good design".

McDonalds sells the most burgers, that doesn't mean it makes the best burgers.

Even from the "results" perspective, its hard to believe that the results are good BECAUSE of the design. If apple.com turned its page to all text, I think it'd still have great traffic. Unless you consider "being at the right place at the right time when there were no serious competitors" a critical design component of Drudge Report, I have to disagree with Jason's assessment.

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.

I'm guessing it's the former.

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..

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.

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.

His claim to fame is breaking the Monica Lewinsky story.

As far as I can tell, when plentyoffish started there was already a lot of dating sites around, so I suppose it's possible. Far from easy though...

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...

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.

Well if some blowhard at 37signals says its a good site, then I must agree!

No reason for snark. 37signals never says something without backing themselves up. They gave good logic. And I agree with it, hence my citing it.

Hacker News users seem to be getting very determined to be biting and sarcastic with every post. It's getting to be a nuisance. What happened to argument by actually making compelling points, by sitting down and typing out a good argument? I mean, I love angry, sarcastic rants as much as anybody. But HN is a good place because it's got people who're smarter than all that, and where you can argue with people and actually assume that the other person is intelligent. That's falling apart. Can we please stop it?

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

http://www.underconsideration.com/speakup/archives/002462.ht...

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?

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

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

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.

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

Linkbait pays off.

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

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.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com