Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Reddit raises $200M at a $1.8B valuation

recode.net

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

371–380 of 451 posts

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

#371

Post by ShinTakuya »

shawnz wrote: post #141
pmoriarty wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't think of a single popular site redesign that actually made the site better. They're almost inevitably worse, usually much worse. A common failing is trying to make the design more shiny and pretty while decreasing functionality, dumbing the site down, adding bloat, and slowing the site down to a crawl. I really hope Reddit does not go down this road, because they really have a good thing going now. It would b…

> A common failing is trying to make the design more shiny and pretty while decreasing functionality, dumbing the site down, adding bloat, and slowing the site down to a crawl. If you look at the new reddit profiles beta, you will see that it checks all these boxes.

Yeah I regret agreeing to the irreversible change on my main account. So much harder to get to the information I care about.

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

#372

Post by rockyj »

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…

Absolutely. Before reddit "digg" was the big site. And suddenly digg died and all users moved to reddit. And digg died because of a "re-design". Can't believe reddit is doing the same mistake.

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

#373

Post by bionoid »

Looking past the visual design, I think a more pressing question is what will happen to the API? From my perspective, it is Reddit's saving grace. It bridges the gap between available functionality and what moderators and users actually need. I personally run about ~30kloc of Python code against reddit 24/7, mostly to aid moderation of subreddits. This codebase has grown organically over the years, and truth be told, a major API change will require a major investment in my end. That is my own fault, for sure, but I know several other developers in the same boat.

Breaking the API will take away essential functionality from a very wide range of communities, moderators and users alike. Can they do a complete front- and back-end rewrite and still maintain a backwards-compatible API? If not, I am out, because a rewrite is simply way too much work.

edit: typo

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

#374

Post by romanovcode »

>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.

So they are doing same mistakes as Digg. Interesting.

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

#377

Post by Markoff »

yoodenvranx wrote: post #45
tarr11 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I still use i.reddit.com which I think is a better mobile interface. It loads very fast, I can scan through posts very quickly, and it uses very little mobile bandwidth. If I want to click through and see an image, I can easily do that. They keep adding more things to the default mobile interface (suggestions, ads, pictures) that slow it down and make me avoid using it. I think they don't realize how much of their co…

The old mobile page is awesome and the day they kill it is the day I will stop using reddit on mobile.

why not use Sync, Boost or Slide? honestly if it were not for desktop i would not even know how looks Reddit at the moment, all clients are superior to their website and official client

that's like visiting hacker news website from mobile instead of using Materialistic

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

#378

Post by kagamine »

imron wrote: post #302
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…

Did they learn nothing from the digg exodus? >“We want Reddit to be more visually appealing,” "Visually appealing" isn't the reason people visit reddit.

thing is, reddit is visually appealing. It's a list of links in purest form. If it wasn't saturated with gifs, images and shitposting, it would be ideal UX. It works quite well in Lynx (the comnand line browser on Linux) which is a pretty good test of an easily navigable, content first, site.

My main reddit account is 8+ years old (predecessor accounts long forgotten) and over the years on web-dev and UX subreddits there have been numerous user's redesigns put forward all of which have one thing in common: they all fail to grasp that simplicity is what made it popular and keeps it popular. On a 10 year old laptop PC it still works, loads fast and functions. RES (hardware depending) expands it and slows it down, but is not a necessary tool to make the experience acceptable.

I guarantee reddit is on a downward slide. But for myself, it's good it's becoming less interesting to visit because it is a time vampire, where once it was a valuable source of information.

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

#379

Post by virgilp »

pmoriarty wrote: post #92
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 can't think of a single popular site redesign that actually made the site better. They're almost inevitably worse, usually much worse. A common failing is trying to make the design more shiny and pretty while decreasing functionality, dumbing the site down, adding bloat, and slowing the site down to a crawl. I really hope Reddit does not go down this road, because they really have a good thing going now. It would b…

> I can't think of a single popular site redesign that actually made the site better.

Seriously? How about Google.com? Google Maps? Gmail? Apple.com? CNN? Uber? Surely you must believe at least some of those made the site better...

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

#380

Post by Nursie »

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…

Eh, that's just equivocating. Some views genuinely are hateful, not just transgressive.
Post reply on HN