Monday, June 6, 2011
SoCal's Next Big Online Publisher: Breitbart.com?
Southern California is already establishing a reputation as the home of one of the biggest online publishers, Demand Media. However, what will Southern California's next big, online publishing empire be? Based on events in recent days, it might be Los Angeles-based Breitbart.com, the controversial online publishing venture of Andrew Brietbart. Breitbart.com runs the site Big Government, which broke the story of U.S. Representative Anthony Weiner last week, and forced Weiner today to admit that the inappropriate and suggestive Twitter messages and photos from his Twitter account were, indeed, sent by the him. Breitbart also runs BigHollywood.com, BigJournalism.com, and BigPeace.com, among other sites. Like Demand Media -- but perhaps more so -- Breitbart.com is also under fire from "mainstream" journalists, who have decried the site's news tactics in multiple political scandals. Unknown to most, however, are the details of the technical back-end operations at Breitbart.com, which powers the aggregation software and includes the expertise of a number of So-Cal technology veterans. It's clear, however, that like Demand Media, Breitbart.com is bound to attract controversy from journalists as it builds its readership and business.