Breitbart helped define the internet as a useful tool for conservatives. Very few people on the Right at that time truly understood the power of social media. They didn't comprehend how it could be used to attract popular interest, motivate general discussion, and get things done. Breitbart got it, so to speak, and played a huge role in selling the message to others.    

He worked with Matt Drudge, and transformed the Drudge Report into an influential news aggregation website. He eventually started Breitbart.com, and followed up with other websites: BigHollywood.com, BigGovernment.com, BigJournalism.com, and BigPeace.com. He introduced Breitbart TV, which included clips of powerful figures making either sensible or outrageous statements. He also helped Arianna Huffington (formerly a conservative, now a liberal) with her launch of the Huffington Post. Yet his influence went much further than the mere act of building websites. 

Breitbart was a conservative Everyman, an ex-liberal who saw the light, understood what he needed to, and became part of a political world that had probably never crossed his imagination. His personal mission was to improve conservative prospects, increase the Right's voice, and promote the important concepts of liberty, democracy and freedom. He regularly met Republican politicians and  Tea Party members — and would chat, argue and debate with just about anyone who emailed, texted or tweeted him anything from a nasty comment to a praiseworthy note. 

In many ways, Breitbart's life and quest reminds me of the famous passage from Rudyard Kipling's poem, If. He could "talk with crowds" or "walk with Kings" without losing "the common touch". And he certainly filled "the unforgiving minute with sixty seconds' worth of distance run".