The Drudge Report's permanent list of links to blogs, papers, columnists, and other sources has always been idiosyncratic. Peggy Noonan and Rosie O'Donnell share precious space with Forbes and CNN; blogs are generally underrepresented but Gawker's long been a staple. Earlier today, he quietly updated. New to the Drudge permalink club: Daily Kos, Free Republic, and Talking Points Memo, among others. The man's had Perez Hilton up there for god knows how long but he's just now getting around to a web magazine that's been online almost as long as he has? And such belated recognition of Kos? Is liberals growing hatred of Hillary Clinton really all it took to win Matt's love?

Arianna Huffington came to this internet with little more than a URL, a dream and a whole lot of connections. Now, according to Nielsen online, the Huffington Post has surpassed the Drudge Report in traffic. What perfect timing for a New Yorker essay on the state of online journalism and how she's changing the rules.

This is my new favorite website. [Dog Report Dot Com]

Web news maestro Matt Drudge, a disaster-loving British tabloid editor in his heart, takes last night's unusual earthquake in England as another opportunity to flaunt his headline-writing skills. "Quake, Mate" isn't bad. Though, if Drudge is going to play with London slang, take this, Miami mockney: "England Throws A Wobbly". Your round, in the comments! (Best so far: "Briefly, Earthquake Causes Briton's Teeth to Appear Normal".)

The only two videos on Matt Drudge's YouTube account both feature Hillary Clinton having a coughing fit. Weird thing is, he used his account once last May to show her coughing at a commencement speech, then again today to show her hacking it up on TV. While the old video has actual footage, the new one is just a camcorder pointed at the TV, which would be déclassé even when copying last night's Family Guy. Both videos are below, if you share Drudge's Clinton-cough fetish.

I've always preferred editorially controlled news sources like Fark and the Drudge Report. I'm more likely to find links that I think are interesting. On "social news" sites like Digg, readers get endless Ron Paul and Apple links, as fanboys constantly vote for their preferred subjects. Occasionally though, something else makes it to the top of the social news pile.

The Drudge Report is the homepage for many news junkies — myself included. That's likely because Matt Drudge has never really jumped on the Web 2.0 bandwagon — no comments, no voting on stories, no submitting stories (except through the anonymous tips box) for peer review, no videos, no lolcats. The site has pretty much been the same since it launched in the late '90s — until today!

Anecdotal but interesting: The transcript of phone calls between The New Republic editors and their problematic "Baghdad Diarist" that was posted and then yanked from The Drudge Report is real, says a blogger—what fake document would namecheck an obscure Army Public Affairs officer? [Red State]

The Drudge Report has gone guns-out on The New Republic on how the magazine handled the controversy over a series of articles it ran by the anonymous "Baghdad Diarist." Documents posted on Drudge this afternoon (and then whisked off again just like that!), Drudge claimed, indicated that TNR "failed to publicly account for publishing slanderous falsehoods about the U.S. military in a time of war." The docs may or may not be damning evidence. But presuming they're not fakes—and the transcript is incredibly detailed, for certain—here's what they say.

"Drudge, Drudge, Drudge. One can only imagine the particular kind of loathing the Dickensian music of that name must inspire in White House staffers," observed Steve Silberman a decade ago. Today, Matt Drudge curdles the whey of journalists and bloggers, too. At 16 million visits, a slow day on drudgereport.com is still an order of magnitude beyond the New York Times's website. Drudge even beats the 10 million or so auto-delivered daily to MSN by Internet Explorer (DISCLAIMER: I write for MSN. And you don't.) As the world's most-read standalone journalist, Matt Drudge makes Instapundit Glenn Reynolds — 198,000 daily visits — seem like a piker. So it always brings a smile to watch tech bloggers jockey for position. Robert Scoble, #43 on the latest hot list, gets props for publishing his blog's stats yesterday, but reality check: Even the Scobleizer's fan club measures under one-half of a millidrudge.

A quick shot of his computer reveals that the Drudge Report helps "The Hills" boy-of-evil Spencer Pratt stay on top of things as he plans his nefarious schemes. Mustn't waste time, Spencer! [Get Excited]

News blog Drudge Report doesn't list Fark.com on its blogroll of sources. But a tell-tale URL on a story about emigration from Britain shows that Matt Drudge does, in fact, read the edgy social news site. [Drudge Report]

Why, that's just how this unseasonably warm weather makes us feel, Matt: like a tiny little desperately confused monkey, clutching a stuffed duck.

The quest for the highest profit margins: Matt Drudge's Drudge Report clears approximately $800,000 a year on a shoestring budget. By comparison, the New York Times Digital makes approximately $35,000 in operating profit per employee, and that doesn't include the cost of generating most of the content, which comes from the print side of the business.
The secrets of Drudge, Inc [Business 2.0 via IWantMedia]

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