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Reddit becomes reddit Inc.

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Re: Reddit becomes reddit Inc.

#51

Post by rmc »

weinzierl wrote: post #44
joshklein wrote: post #31

The question for reddit isn't whether or not people enjoy it and want to spend time on it, but whether or not the owners can make money selling those people's attention. The traffic to reddit - while admirably large - is relatively unattractive to most advertisers. "Reach" (impressions/eyeballs) are only important insofar as you're talking to someone who might buy what you're selling (see "relevancy"). The sub-reddit…

"The sub-reddit system could theoretically segment the audience in interesting ways, but other than r/gaming, there aren't many natural industry fits amongst popular sub-reddits." In my opinion this is only true for a few (admittedly most popular) subreddits like r/funny and r/wtf and everything nsfw . Nearly every subreddit that I read has an industry that fits, r/photography -> photo gear, r/parenting -> baby stuff…

Exactly, Some more examples: r/motorcycles r/programming r/$PROGRAMMING_LANGUAGE r/linux etc.

The NSFW ones are tricky. On one hand there's a lot of money in porn. But most of the content there is either stuff from porn companies (that would be paying for ads), or amateur stuff, and would an amateur audience like porn company ads?

Re: Reddit becomes reddit Inc.

#52

Post by trafficlight »

fabiandesimone wrote: post #48
joshklein wrote: post #31

The question for reddit isn't whether or not people enjoy it and want to spend time on it, but whether or not the owners can make money selling those people's attention. The traffic to reddit - while admirably large - is relatively unattractive to most advertisers. "Reach" (impressions/eyeballs) are only important insofar as you're talking to someone who might buy what you're selling (see "relevancy"). The sub-reddit…

Some time ago, the Reddit community expressed their interest to have an @reddit email account (they were willing to pay for POP access, etc.). I tried to contact the Reddit admins by Reddit messages, email, Facebook, etc, because we can provide them with @reddit mail accounts in no time and scalability is not an issue (we have installations in some of the biggest ISPs in the world) and it would cost them nothing as w…

It's not really that far from their core product. To me, Reddit is this big clubhouse where you get all of the references and in-jokes. Having a Reddit email address is just one more thing that shows you belong.

Re: Reddit becomes reddit Inc.

#53

Post by fabiandesimone »

rmc wrote: post #50
fabiandesimone wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some time ago, the Reddit community expressed their interest to have an @reddit email account (they were willing to pay for POP access, etc.). I tried to contact the Reddit admins by Reddit messages, email, Facebook, etc, because we can provide them with @reddit mail accounts in no time and scalability is not an issue (we have installations in some of the biggest ISPs in the world) and it would cost them nothing as w…

How much have people said they'd pay? I doubt it'll be that much. How can you do it for free? The email market seems to free now, can you really make money by selling email?

I can't seem to find the original Reddit discussion. It does not have to be much. Is a numbers game and Reddit has a lot of users.

I remember our initial calculations were interesting to everyone involved.

Re: Reddit becomes reddit Inc.

#54

Post by joshklein »

weinzierl wrote: post #44
joshklein wrote: post #31

The question for reddit isn't whether or not people enjoy it and want to spend time on it, but whether or not the owners can make money selling those people's attention. The traffic to reddit - while admirably large - is relatively unattractive to most advertisers. "Reach" (impressions/eyeballs) are only important insofar as you're talking to someone who might buy what you're selling (see "relevancy"). The sub-reddit…

"The sub-reddit system could theoretically segment the audience in interesting ways, but other than r/gaming, there aren't many natural industry fits amongst popular sub-reddits." In my opinion this is only true for a few (admittedly most popular) subreddits like r/funny and r/wtf and everything nsfw . Nearly every subreddit that I read has an industry that fits, r/photography -> photo gear, r/parenting -> baby stuff…

You're not wrong by any means, but it's also a question of scale and purchasing power. There's no doubt that r/parenting is filled with people worth talking to about, say, baby products. But then look at the advertising sales minisite for Babycenter.com[1]; a company like Johnson & Johnson isn't going to bother with r/parenting. Smaller companies might be interested, but small companies don't spend much money on ads. When they do, they mostly spend it on Adwords.

Of course the joke here is that J&J bought Babycenter. If I were a category-specific CPG company, I'd cut out the publisher middleman, too.

Ad networks & exchanges lead us to think there's a perfectly efficient & liquid market for ad space, but there's a real scaling problem for big advertisers that leads them to stick with big publishers. Quality control on r/parenting would be a concern.

[1] http://www.babycentersolutions.com/

Re: Reddit becomes reddit Inc.

#55

Post by pointyhat »

dchuk wrote: post #18
pointyhat wrote: post #5

Perhaps it's dying and they are trying to cut it loose first.

In terms of traffic and user base, they're killing it. In terms of revenue (and most importantly, profit), I'm sure they've been a massive let down for Conde Nast. Now they spun them out so other people can finance it without it being their sole burden.

That summarises my point perfectly.

Re: Reddit becomes reddit Inc.

#56

Post by corin_ »

emmett wrote: post #26
evan_ wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>They're currently experiencing explosive growth so was Digg, and Fark before it, and Slashdot before that. Am I wrong? History shows that these sites are basically popular for a certain amount of time, and then they lose huge market share when they inevitably do something to sour the community-at-large (like trying to monetize).

The thing is, Reddit started at the same time Digg did. It's been growing slowly and consistently ever since. Their growth rate actually hasn't changed much over time. Reddit figured out how to support subcommunities in a way that those other sites never did. In my opinion that's what's different. See also: social networks. Every social network was a passing fad...until Facebook wasn't.

facebook wasn't

You meant it hasn't so far. That's not a dig at Facebook, or a prediction of death, but on the short timescale we're looking at (a few years really) it's much to soon to know whether they've stopped the cycle, or made it slower. And therefore you can extent that to Reddit, the fact that they've gone longer without decline doesn't mean they won't start their decline tomorrow, or the next day.

Re: Reddit becomes reddit Inc.

#57

Post by sunchild »

pygy_ wrote: post #28
klbarry wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

However, Reddit users are notoriously cheap and anti-commercial.

As the user base grows there is a growing amount of thinly disguised commercial content that sneaks in, often through strategic product placement in pictures. Since the community is less vigilant than it used to, I assume that the newcomers are less concerned about commerce.

It doesn't take much to send a fickle user base like Reddit's running for the next Internet hangout. There are plenty of examples from the recent past. Remember Digg?

Re: Reddit becomes reddit Inc.

#58

Post by oditogre »

rmc wrote: post #50
fabiandesimone wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some time ago, the Reddit community expressed their interest to have an @reddit email account (they were willing to pay for POP access, etc.). I tried to contact the Reddit admins by Reddit messages, email, Facebook, etc, because we can provide them with @reddit mail accounts in no time and scalability is not an issue (we have installations in some of the biggest ISPs in the world) and it would cost them nothing as w…

How much have people said they'd pay? I doubt it'll be that much. How can you do it for free? The email market seems to free now, can you really make money by selling email?

People pay for Reddit Gold. I don't see why they wouldn't pay for an @reddit.com email address, too.

Re: Reddit becomes reddit Inc.

#59

Post by SoftwareMaven »

thurn wrote: post #2

Can someone with more business know-how tell me how a company like Condé Nast benefits from making Reddit an incorporated subsidiary? It doesn't sound like all that much is changing, honestly.

One issue not mentioned here is that Condé Nast has particular rules about staffing that are good for magazines but bad for web sites. These kinds of issues need to be worked through politically every single time they come up.

As a stand-alone entity, they won't be subject to those rules, and Condé Nast doesn't have to worry about the rest of its companies saying, "but reddit did it".

Re: Reddit becomes reddit Inc.

#60

Post by SwellJoe »

evan_ wrote: post #38
emmett wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing is, Reddit started at the same time Digg did. It's been growing slowly and consistently ever since. Their growth rate actually hasn't changed much over time. Reddit figured out how to support subcommunities in a way that those other sites never did. In my opinion that's what's different. See also: social networks. Every social network was a passing fad...until Facebook wasn't.

Is it growing slowly and consistently, or experiencing explosive growth? The link I was replying to shows that while Reddit and Digg started at about the same time, Reddit really only took off when Digg committed suicide. http://soshable.com/reddit-traffic-has-exploded-in-12-months...

Correlation is not necessarily causation.
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