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Reddit traffic doubles in less than a year, to 2 billion monthly pageviews

blog.reddit.com

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Re: Reddit traffic doubles in less than a year, to 2 billion monthly pageviews

#51

Post by wavephorm »

mattgreenrocks wrote: post #6
fletchowns wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm guessing they are making money (ads & reddit gold) since they have been able to make a few hires recently. Unfortunately the overall quality of content on reddit has really gone downhill. Even after unsubscribing to the subreddits that were the worst offenders, it's really hard to find interesting stuff with meaningful discussions. These days I'm almost embarrassed to tell people I use reddit.

Reddit is the new Digg. Groupthink on an epic scale, linkbait headlines, and hordes of people that want to feel angry about things so they can at least feel something . (Just like old media!) Now, there is some good content on there, but there's way too much crap to wade through in order to find it.

  Groupthink on an epic scale, linkbait headlines, and hordes 
  of people that want to feel angry about things so they can 
  at least feel something. (Just like old media!) Now, there 
  is some good content on there, but there's way too much 
  crap to wade through in order to find it.
So... it's exactly like the internet?

Re: Reddit traffic doubles in less than a year, to 2 billion monthly pageviews

#52

Post by spindritf »

bialecki wrote: post #31
danso wrote: post #21

Whatever you think of @reddit's march towards decline...this was my favorite part of the blog post...and something I hope rings with other popular sites: Here’s a list of things we don’t (and won’t) do for traffic: We don't get traffic through ads. We don’t participate in any traffic trading. We don’t email our users (unless they choose to enter an email and then forget their password). We don’t harass users to sign…

Not to take a thing away from Reddit, but there are a lot of bored people out there and they don't know that many great places on the internet. To compound that, mobile devices have created more time when you can be doing something else (i.e. between commercials, on the bus, etc.). It's not that there aren't a lot of great websites out there, it's just that most people I know only go to 2-5 regularly. Reddit is a gre…

Because Reddit is not like those other sites. I have 130 feeds in my RSS reader, 9 pages on my speed dial (including HN and other forums) and still visit Reddit every once in a while.

Re: Reddit traffic doubles in less than a year, to 2 billion monthly pageviews

#53

Post by AtTheLast »

patrickod wrote: post #20
kmfrk wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there a consensus about what caused the decline of Digg? I thought it had a lot to do with the redesign that couldn't be reverted, but I don't like to peddle hearsay and assumptions like it's the truth, especially since I never used Digg.

IIRC the redesign was the final straw for many users and caused the mass-exodus. I think the functionality of subreddits and the ability to completely ignore the "mainstream content" if you so wish has been the main feature that has helped reddit stop the decline.

Subreddits are what will keep Reddit strong. Even though Reddit has tons of members, subreddits make it feel much smaller and personal.

Re: Reddit traffic doubles in less than a year, to 2 billion monthly pageviews

#54

Post by ig1 »

nostromo wrote: post #27
jonknee wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

LinkedIn's audience/traffic is far more valuable though, so I'm not sure why you added the bit about their market cap. Reddit users by and large are there for entertainment and don't click on ads. LinkedIn's users are there for work and by and large are the ads.

I don't think reddit is really trying so hard to monitize. (And given the nature of their user base, maybe it's the smartest thing to do.) The banner ad unit on the right of reddit is almost never running a real ad. It's always an ad for a subreddit or a pretty picture. That one single spot at $1 cpm at 2b pageviews could net reddit $2mm a month. That's a lot of money to be left on the table.

Reddit's advertising UX is horrendous, every time I use it I always have to spend an hour figuring exactly how to give them money.

Re: Reddit traffic doubles in less than a year, to 2 billion monthly pageviews

#56

Post by bad_user »

danso wrote: post #21

Whatever you think of @reddit's march towards decline...this was my favorite part of the blog post...and something I hope rings with other popular sites: Here’s a list of things we don’t (and won’t) do for traffic: We don't get traffic through ads. We don’t participate in any traffic trading. We don’t email our users (unless they choose to enter an email and then forget their password). We don’t harass users to sign…

As with any user-generated content website, it has a problem: amongst those many users Reddit has there are also lots of dicks that spoil the conversations for everybody.

I don't think Reddit wants to go on the path of Youtube - useful for finding out links, but with useless and rude conversations that make you mad at waisting time reading them. I think Reddit got popular because in addition to links, users had meaningful things to say about those links, but the overall quality has been constantly dropping. Reddit should try to find ways to alleviate this phenomenon.

Here's a case study from today. I submitted a link to both HN and /r/programming [1] [2]

Most popular comment and criticism on HN:

   1. User tumblr.
   2. You're done.
Most popular comment and criticism on /r/programming:

   Scumbag programmer: Titles post "Blogging for Hackers". 
   Writes the whole thing in Ruby.

   Edit: Whoops - looks like those Ruby rockstars woke up.
[1] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3428369

[2] http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/o3v2u/blogging_...

Re: Reddit traffic doubles in less than a year, to 2 billion monthly pageviews

#57

Post by polshaw »

Adaptive wrote: post #35

Condé Nast had no idea what they were buying. The best decision they made, one I'm sure that was the result of the Reddit team making the case for it, was relatively hands off mgmt. I suspect CN still doesn't really know what to do with it other than sit back and not screw it up.

Fairly niche perhaps, but i think Wired benefits from it. Other than the natural posting of wired articles on reddit, there have been a couple of articles in wired which originated from reddit content.

There is a lot of potential for datamining and finding trends, what is popular, what would go down well, etc, which they may well be doing too.

Re: Reddit traffic doubles in less than a year, to 2 billion monthly pageviews

#58

Post by metellus »

prawn wrote: post #50
mattgreenrocks wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reddit is the new Digg. Groupthink on an epic scale, linkbait headlines, and hordes of people that want to feel angry about things so they can at least feel something . (Just like old media!) Now, there is some good content on there, but there's way too much crap to wade through in order to find it.

Is there a way to create a customised frontdoor without having an account? I remember reading something about chaining subreddits in a URL, but never gave it a shot. I'm also in the "embarrassed mentioning Reddit" camp, but I do like AskScience and anything like that.

You can do exactly what you described by chaining subreddits in the url. Just go to reddit.com/r/sub1+sub2+sub3...

That being said, making an account is suprisingly easy and has its benefits.

Re: Reddit traffic doubles in less than a year, to 2 billion monthly pageviews

#59

Post by 127 »

danso wrote: post #21

Whatever you think of @reddit's march towards decline...this was my favorite part of the blog post...and something I hope rings with other popular sites: Here’s a list of things we don’t (and won’t) do for traffic: We don't get traffic through ads. We don’t participate in any traffic trading. We don’t email our users (unless they choose to enter an email and then forget their password). We don’t harass users to sign…

They do show stupid pictures ("Instead of an ad, here's...") instead of ads that steal my attention for no reason what so ever. The sole reason I'm using adblock. I do not want to, but those damn pictures are so damn annoying that I have no choice.

How about not show anything if you are not going to show an ad? Why steal my attention and bother me for no reason at all?

Re: Reddit traffic doubles in less than a year, to 2 billion monthly pageviews

#60

Post by bad_user »

raldi wrote: post #19
jonknee wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

LinkedIn's audience/traffic is far more valuable though, so I'm not sure why you added the bit about their market cap. Reddit users by and large are there for entertainment and don't click on ads. LinkedIn's users are there for work and by and large are the ads.

Reddit doesn't discuss profitability, but note that the Cheezburger Network has been profitable since inception: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1857411 If they can make money off ads, what makes you think reddit can't?

I think the culture of a community can be a powerful force against earning money from ads.

Here's a sample of why Reddit may be earning less than it should: http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/mour1/4_books_f...

(disclaimer - that comment is on my own link and made me bitter unfortunately)

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