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Reddit needs help

blog.reddit.com

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Re: Reddit needs help

#81

Post by axod »

vaksel wrote: post #59
axod wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

if your audience is hard to monetize, then you go for CPM advertising. That way you get big name brands that want to raise awareness about their products rather than convert users to buy a widget. This way they'd get more or less guaranteed $3-4 CPM...the fact that reddit has 4 engineers and 0 sales people goes to show that they aren't even trying to monetize the site.

If you put traditional (well paying) ads on Reddit, I think the userbase would revolt scream etc etc.

Re: Reddit needs help

#82

Post by ErrantX »

axod wrote: post #35
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…

I'd bet the % of adblock users on Reddit is way higher than the average.

So, actually, this could be an interesting experiment - the ad blockers slogan is often "I prefer to subscribe".

I hope it works out that way for them!

Re: Reddit needs help

#83

Post by brianpan »

zach wrote: post #55

I have to say, this looks bad for the whole "users first, revenue later" mantra. Now, admittedly, the founders got paid on the flip. But there are users, and now it's later, so... where is the revenue? I heard this moment described as the "where is the land" moment. The crew has been sailing the ocean for a long time and they're running on slim hope. They grumble, then complain, and finally they confront the captain…

Where is the revenue? I think that blog post, 1700 upvotes, and 1400 comments is pretty good indication of the possible revenue. Hint: it'll probably be more than the 3 readers of my blog will be ponying up this year.

http://www.reddit.com/r/announcements/comments/cnth8/making_...

Re: Reddit needs help

#84

Post by city41 »

mdwrigh2 wrote: post #44
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.

They don't actually have merchandise that generates a profit. All of their merchandise is done through breadpig, where 100% of the profits go to a charity.

Although that is admirable, shouldn't they get themselves on solid financial footing before donating?

Re: Reddit needs help

#85

Post by [deleted] »

axod wrote: post #70
_pi wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be honest Reddit isn't that techie anymore, reddit's demographics have shifted to teenage and young adult males and girls who are "geeks". Not only that but the default reddits are becoming a cesspool like Digg. Essentially the community had so much Digg hate in the beginning but at least Kevin Rose kept his site running while the demographics shifted.

Sure, I think their demographic has shifted away from techie. Now it's anti-consumerist adblock loving pot smokin' gay marriage loving liberals.

[deleted]

Re: Reddit needs help

#86

Post by ww520 »

Time to hire some business folks? Really, now it is not the time to talk about server expansion or more page views. The highest priority now is monetization. They need to come up with ways to get paid sufficiently to expand.

Here are the things they can do: 1. Place more ads. I don't buy the notion that many reddit users run ad-blockers. Even half of them do, you still get 140M/month page views. 2. Get Google AdSense, to place content-related ads. 3. Sponsorship. Have companies to sponsor some subreddits and add companies promotion and events. 4. Paid submission, clearly marked so. Company ad and product/service announcement can go there. E.g. all the webhosting promotion deals going on now. 5. Create some deal/coupon/onsales subreddits. Have companies feed them and pay for them. Rather than just having user-generated content, have companies generated content as well, and get paid for them. 6. CPA revenue sharing. Give redditers some percentage of discount when they go to a merchant's site to purchase something from a reddit link. Reddit takes a cut. It's a win-win-win setup, merchant sells a product minus the marketing cost which becomes the redditers' discount and reddit's share.

There are so many ways to skin this cat. They are sitting on a good problem to have. Why are they fumbling on this?

Re: Reddit needs help

#88

Post by jbooth »

axod wrote: post #81
vaksel wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

if your audience is hard to monetize, then you go for CPM advertising. That way you get big name brands that want to raise awareness about their products rather than convert users to buy a widget. This way they'd get more or less guaranteed $3-4 CPM...the fact that reddit has 4 engineers and 0 sales people goes to show that they aren't even trying to monetize the site.

If you put traditional (well paying) ads on Reddit, I think the userbase would revolt scream etc etc.

They'd scream, and there'd be a rash of "this sucks, I'm quitting" diaries and then like 5 people who were going to quit anyways would actually leave.

Look at their site, 2 total ads on the main page, one per comment page.

They could bump that to 5 per page without breaking a sweat. There's their revenue.

Re: Reddit needs help

#90

Post by famfam »

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.

Nice game. I logged in to play it a bit. I'd love to hear how the game is doing for you (e.g. paying for itself, ramen profitable, ferrari profitable). I'm actually in the middle of developing a browser based "MMO" myself right now. (Nothing deployed yet.)
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