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Reddit needs help

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Re: Reddit needs help

#31

Post by cag_ii »

jamesshamenski wrote: post #7

Conde Nast looks like a bunch of chumps right now. I doubt Mike Raldi will last longer than a year if he has to raise funds in this way.

Unless you have some inside information, what on earth makes you think that Conde Nast is to entirely to blame?

The people over at reddit have made two thing clear: that Conde Nast won't increase their budget unless they increase their revenue. And that their current budget is not enough for them to run reddit the way they would like.

I'm certainly not defending Conde Nast, nor will I blindly defend reddit. And I certainly don't expect any company to run a site the size of reddit out of charity.

I will donate, as I've been a long time reddit user who enjoys the site (though somewhat less as time goes on).

Re: Reddit needs help

#32

Post by davidw »

I don't know, I think paying money for nothing in return to a big corporation is a little bit insane, actually. $5, in the right hands, would go a long ways in Africa or various other places in the world where people have real, urgent needs. Or if that's not your thing, there are all kinds of real charities out there. Hell, if you want, you can send the money my way and I'll put it in my daughter's college education/future fund. She's even cuter than the reddit alien and doesn't have such extremist political views ("pacifiers for all!" is probably the most controversial).

Joking aside, I think there are a lot of people in Africa, Haiti and, sadly, many other places in the world, who would get a lot more out of a few dollars than my daughter, who will hopefully never experience anything like the sort of privation many people see every day there.

Re: Reddit needs help

#33

Post by lvecsey »

Can any savings be had by committing to a data center instead of paying the amazon hosting rates? I fear if they're at yet another crunch point, the next one will be too much. Granted the pressure to "do more with less" is always there, but something has to give.

Re: Reddit needs help

#34

Post by ziadbc »

Reddit is very loyal to its userbase, but isn't moderating them too much. Thus, it is becoming hard to market toward them because there isn't an easy in for someone offering products. Either they need to shape their audience more, or figure out the right types of products (these may not even exist yet, but I'm sure there are plenty of things redditors want that don't yet exist) I would also look at what people are giving for arbitrary day as an idea for advertisers.

Re: Reddit needs help

#35

Post by axod »

vaksel wrote: post #6

280 million page views a month and they aren't breaking even to support 4 engineers? wtf

They have a userbase which is ridiculously hard to monetize (IMHO). I'd bet the % of adblock users on Reddit is way higher than the average. The Reddit crowd aren't your average mainstream user. It's a particular crowd (liberal anti-capitalism pro-cannabis etc etc) [Again, just my opinion]

Also they really have very few adverts at all on the site, and those that are there, are tucked away not very noticable.

Say you get an eCPM of $0.05 or something (A guess for that sort of site so I may be way off)... That'd work out to $14k/month in ad revenue for 280m pageviews.

Re: Reddit needs help

#36

Post by blhack »

axod wrote: post #30
gonehome wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think they are generating revenue, just not enough for Conde Nast to increase their budget. This seems like a way for them to get extra money that they can personally use toward the site.

It seems likely they aren't actually making a profit yet. 4 engineers, servers, etc seem like they could be costing way more than a few ads bring in.

Doesn't digg have something like 40 full time employees?

Re: Reddit needs help

#37

Post by axod »

avar wrote: post #11

According to this talk they're paying around $250k/year for server hosting at EC2: http://pycon.blip.tv/file/3257303/ See the question at around ~27m into the video.

WTH are they using EC2 (One of the most expensive hosts around)?

Re: Reddit needs help

#39

Post by [deleted] »

EvilTrout wrote: post #16
swilliams wrote: post #2

It's good that they're seeking ways to increase revenue, but this comes across as nearly cyber-begging. "...we can right now only offer you our undying gratitude and an optional trophy on your userpage." Yikes. What else could reddit offer for subscribers other than a png? Can reddit or similar platforms find a good way to generate revenue? Obviously ads and merchandise (t-shirts, etc) aren't doing it alone here.

There are tons of sites where people can (and do!) pay money for a simple PNG. I'd know: my web based MMO, Forumwarz is one. People can pay to buy some kinds of "E-Peen" which is our version of badges.

[deleted]

Re: Reddit needs help

#40

Post by axod »

blhack wrote: post #36
axod wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems likely they aren't actually making a profit yet. 4 engineers, servers, etc seem like they could be costing way more than a few ads bring in.

Doesn't digg have something like 40 full time employees?

I thought it was even more than that at one point. But I think Digg went the "perpetual investment" route as a business model didn't they?
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