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Reddit raises $200M at a $1.8B valuation

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Re: Reddit raises $200M at a $1.8B valuation

#321

Post by frik »

stevenj wrote: post #3

>the company is literally re-writing all of its code Wow. >An early version of the new design, which we saw during our interview, looks similar to Facebook’s News Feed or Twitter’s Timeline: A never-ending feed of content broken up into “cards” with more visuals to lure people into the conversations hidden underneath. >“We want Reddit to be more visually appealing,” he explained, “so when new users come to Reddit the…

> Reddit is re-writing all of its code ... new design ... looks similar to Facebook News Feed ...

Sounds like Digg.com v4. We all know the rewrite and new design didn't work out, people left for Reddit and back to /. and to HN.

It's time for HN to add different channels ;)

Re: Reddit raises $200M at a $1.8B valuation

#322

Post by glenstein »

stevenj wrote: post #3

>the company is literally re-writing all of its code Wow. >An early version of the new design, which we saw during our interview, looks similar to Facebook’s News Feed or Twitter’s Timeline: A never-ending feed of content broken up into “cards” with more visuals to lure people into the conversations hidden underneath. >“We want Reddit to be more visually appealing,” he explained, “so when new users come to Reddit the…

I share your sentiment that a significant redesign could be a huge mistake.

I think resisting the urge to redesign over the years has been huge for the growth of Reddit. And I think even a perfect redesign will be instinctually rejected by large swaths of the community (Markos Moulitsas used to say 1/3 of the community will hate a redesign no matter what it is.) In reddit's case the potential for rejection comes not just from typical human nature reasons but from specific cultural reasons particular to reddit: its propensity for hiveminding and collective freakouts, and consolidating around a narrative.

They may be too big at this point to be undone by a redesign. But I hope the devs really, really know what they are doing.

Re: Reddit raises $200M at a $1.8B valuation

#323

Post by vlunkr »

Honestly, how do you monetize Reddit? I'm curious what ideas they supposedly have. The crowd is too tech savvy to just throw more ads on it. They run ad blockers, and if you get aggressive like news sites do, the exodus will begin. It just seems like a community with little loyalty to the site itself, and distrust of obvious commercialization.

Re: Reddit raises $200M at a $1.8B valuation

#324

Post by glenstein »

taurath wrote: post #289
SOLAR_FIELDS wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the constant pressure from VC's for better monetization. One of the features being discussed on the thread over on Reddit that is planned to be introduced is a location-based front page. This will make targeted ads by location an easier product for Reddit to sell and mine data from.

And many many users will leave, as they did with Digg. It's too large and lowest common denominator already, and a major redesign will be the impetus for a brain drain as all users will have a shared gripe. HN is a very likely spillover target, and already is for a lot of the programmer focused discussion that used to be Reddits core user base. I've watched so many communities die from monetization, the cycle really…

I definitely think there is a risk. However, reddit is much larger now than Digg was then. And reddit existed as a clear alternative to Digg at the time of the redesign.

I think there's a very real risk of a redesign going wrong, but it may be large enough and better enough than alternatives to weather the storm.

Re: Reddit raises $200M at a $1.8B valuation

#325

Post by glenstein »

wl wrote: post #198
sirtastic wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can think of one. Google's material design. I love it and feel it tied their apps together while making them easier to use.

Material design ruined Google News on the desktop.

Material design just doesn't work on desktops. Speed and information density are the way to go, and I'd argue they played no small role in reddit's ascendance.

Re: Reddit raises $200M at a $1.8B valuation

#326

Post by Nition »

vlunkr wrote: post #323

Honestly, how do you monetize Reddit? I'm curious what ideas they supposedly have. The crowd is too tech savvy to just throw more ads on it. They run ad blockers, and if you get aggressive like news sites do, the exodus will begin. It just seems like a community with little loyalty to the site itself, and distrust of obvious commercialization.

Feels like a large general discussion service like Reddit isn't the sort of thing that should be a for-profit company at all. And the same with other community-centric sites like GitHub.

These sorts of massive Internet community-curated stores of information would in an ideal world be community supported as well, like Wikipedia. And they also wouldn't (in an ideal world) be under threat of changing radically or disappearing entirely at any moment.

Maybe we need something like the UK's television tax. An Internet tax that pays for public service sites with no advertising and no corporate interest. Add that to the TODO list after world peace.

Re: Reddit raises $200M at a $1.8B valuation

#327

Post by colept »

dcole2929 wrote: post #146
virtualized wrote: post #55

But.. but I began to like Reddit. Now they want to take it away from me by destroying it. > It’s going on a hiring spree Ouch. > redesigning its website For no reason other than giving the unnecessary people from the hiring spree something to do. > Huffman would like to end 2017 with around 300 full-time staff The current number of 230 employees is already about ten times too many. What the hell do they need the addi…

For a site with the kind of traffic Reddit has from as many locales as reddit has, 10 people wouldn't even be enough to comfortably cover basic SRE requirements. Forget new features, they would literally spend all of their time just barely keeping the damn thing working. Their would be no admins. No Secret Santa, nor any of the various many things Reddit currently has that requires the support, and more importantly t…

I would be ok if Reddit stopped doing silly things like Secret Santa, Arbitrary Day, and [other random gift day].

Reddit used to be a place I could go to see topics re: Science, Tech, the Internet, and gadgets. It was the network where my friends weren't - and that felt cool like I was a part of an exclusive club. Things like the April fools pranks: Place/Chat/Button - those are what make Reddit special.

Now all my friends are on Reddit and we send each other links - which is also nice. But I miss the exclusivity and with the loss of it comes a dilution of content to meet the lowest common denominator of entertainment transmissions.

Reddit was a lot more authentic before it started functioning as a community group (ie: "redditors").

Re: Reddit raises $200M at a $1.8B valuation

#328

Post by guelo »

Spivak wrote: post #226
untog wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Voat is just the latest in a never-ending cycle. "We want free speech! Everyone move to our alternative venue where we promote free speech! [...] Wow, there's some truly hateful content on here, how did that happen?"

Some reasons this happens: * Most people don't actually need free speech because in large their ideas are popular, tame, uncontroversial, and respect the established order. * We are quick to define ideas that disagree with popular opinion as hateful which drives those that hold them to the fringe. Only the loudest and angriest will have so little to lose socially that they'll dare speak in public (i.e. the top and bo…

No. The people that are saying black people are bad, gays are bad, muslims are bad, women are bad, etc etc, are hateful, they're the definition of hateful. It's not "PC" to call them out as hateful. In fact, there's a new Political Correctness saying we can't call bigots bigots. If you want to make a safe space for hatefulness then nobody else is going to want to be there. These hateful people are terrorists in that they feel the need to be around as many people as possible so they can inflict the most the maximum amount of pain. They are not interested in having a nice discussion site. Nobody wants to be around them and any non-hateful community will leave if they are allowed to inflict their damage.

Re: Reddit raises $200M at a $1.8B valuation

#329

Post by nimchimpsky »

stevenj wrote: post #3

>the company is literally re-writing all of its code Wow. >An early version of the new design, which we saw during our interview, looks similar to Facebook’s News Feed or Twitter’s Timeline: A never-ending feed of content broken up into “cards” with more visuals to lure people into the conversations hidden underneath. >“We want Reddit to be more visually appealing,” he explained, “so when new users come to Reddit the…

> if HN ever tried to do a major re-design,

I'd love it if they did. I find its minimalism too extreme, and the way they hyperlink unintuitive,

Re: Reddit raises $200M at a $1.8B valuation

#330

Post by im3w1l »

stevenj wrote: post #3

>the company is literally re-writing all of its code Wow. >An early version of the new design, which we saw during our interview, looks similar to Facebook’s News Feed or Twitter’s Timeline: A never-ending feed of content broken up into “cards” with more visuals to lure people into the conversations hidden underneath. >“We want Reddit to be more visually appealing,” he explained, “so when new users come to Reddit the…

Piss off one early adopter power user to bring in a hundred casuals. You've served your purpose.
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