It wasn't easy since with the luxury of only choosing one web site every month, I can take the time to name only what I think is the best, making the field of contenders a potent one. ESR has profiled, heavyweight efforts like Rightgrrl or SpinTech. That said, our winner for this past year is Free Republic, a web site I think has done a lot to further the goals of conservatism by uniting us in a large forum, giving us the ability to share information and ideas. It is the promise of the Internet realized. One trend on the Internet that I particularly dislike is what I call 'portalization'.
Many web sites seem to want to become a portal to something else.
The problem with this approach is that with so many web sites trying to be all things to all people, they end up doing very little for anyone. Other web sites decide to do one or two things very well and stick with it. The Free Republic is one web site that gives specialization a good name. Of course, this approach isn't without its hazards. The Los Angeles Times and the Washington Post filed a copyright infringement lawsuit last year against the unashamedly conservative Free Republic claiming that the web site has reprinted hundreds of their stories without permission.