Left Alone by Its Owner, Reddit Soars
nytimes.com
Left Alone by Its Owner, Reddit Soars
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Re: Left Alone by Its Owner, Reddit Soars
#2"Steve Newhouse, the chairman of Advance.net, decided very early on that his company would not be the blob that ate Reddit, and for the most part, left well enough alone. “We had some ideas about what would be good, but it might not have worked,” Mr. Newhouse said. “We paid attention to the community instead.”"
I may be remembering stuff wrong, but wasn't there more tension + conflict during the period right after the acquisition? Didn't Reddit struggle to pay for basic infrastructure stuff due to their new parent company's skepticism about its viability and perception of its value?
http://blog.reddit.com/2010/07/reddit-needs-help.html
And it was a long while until it got spun out. (http://venturebeat.com/2011/09/06/reddit-break-conde-nast/)
Not that there's anything crazy in any of this. Just that the NYT story paints it like right away they 1) knew Reddit's worth and 2) knew to have a hands-off approach.
I'm far from a Reddit power user, happy to hear other perspectives.
Re: Left Alone by Its Owner, Reddit Soars
#3I think it's a shame that Reddit sold so early but at the same time they can think of the users (Until Conde Nast gets involved). There's no question about their valuation and how they'll monetize. They as a company can work on that and build a great product but there aren't daily blogposts on TechCrunch about it.
Re: Left Alone by Its Owner, Reddit Soars
#4I think it's a shame that Reddit sold so early but at the same time they can think of the users (Until Conde Nast gets involved). There's no question about their valuation and how they'll monetize. They as a company can work on that and build a great product but there aren't daily blogposts on TechCrunch about it.
huh?
Re: Left Alone by Its Owner, Reddit Soars
#5I'm sorry but the first sentence made me laugh:
"There are many ways to measure the traction of a social media platform: [3 ways, to be exact]"
Re: Left Alone by Its Owner, Reddit Soars
#6I think it's a shame that Reddit sold so early but at the same time they can think of the users (Until Conde Nast gets involved). There's no question about their valuation and how they'll monetize. They as a company can work on that and build a great product but there aren't daily blogposts on TechCrunch about it.
Looking for Techcrunch endorsements is so 2009ish. People who know and can reddit, are doing fine because it is possibly one of the last few places on the Internet where pseudonym and trolling is still alive. You feel gratified by people answering your comment given that you have most likely trolled at first. You eventually get a peace later on because the community kept you alive and kicking. Hence it has all the right ingredients of what social-network should be like on the Internet: free, open and anonymous.
Re: Left Alone by Its Owner, Reddit Soars
#7"Steve Newhouse, the chairman of Advance.net, decided very early on that his company would not be the blob that ate Reddit, and for the most part, left well enough alone. “We had some ideas about what would be good, but it might not have worked,” Mr. Newhouse said. “We paid attention to the community instead.”" I may be remembering stuff wrong, but wasn't there more tension + conflict during the period right after th…
I remember before Reddit was moved to an independent subsidiary, there were tension between Conde and Reddit on how to increase the revenue or profit (were they ever profitable?) At one time, the site was crashing frequently due to lack of infrastructure capacity. They were forced to try different things to make money, like Reddit Golds, ad placement, etc.
I think Conde had realized later on that Reddit can become like Craigslist where while it won't be squeezed every ad dollar out of it but it will become enormously profitable and prominent in the web.
Re: Left Alone by Its Owner, Reddit Soars
#8"Strategically, what they have done should be a model of how to create and support a virtual start-up within a larger corporation,' said Anil Dash, a writer and entrepreneur in digital realms."
Well, strategically, they might eventually want to think about making some return on investment for the acquiring investors with actual cash profit. Otherwise, they will eventually be shed at a loss (is anyone else here old enough to remember AOL and Time Warner?).
Strategically, they may also be serving as a cautionary example of why start-ups without a secure revenue model shouldn't be acquired at all, unless there is financial upside for the investors. After all, the article further reports, "Reddit is not an exception to every rule in the digital world. Like many digital media companies, it has a big audience and minuscule revenue."
Re: Left Alone by Its Owner, Reddit Soars
#9"Steve Newhouse, the chairman of Advance.net, decided very early on that his company would not be the blob that ate Reddit, and for the most part, left well enough alone. “We had some ideas about what would be good, but it might not have worked,” Mr. Newhouse said. “We paid attention to the community instead.”" I may be remembering stuff wrong, but wasn't there more tension + conflict during the period right after th…
Keep in mind this is one of dozens of "internet" companies Steve owns depending on where you draw the lines in the greater Newhouse ecosystem (see: http://advance.net and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advance_Publications).
He's also pushing a $500M portfolio into every new-media-investing VC fund he can find: http://www.adweek.com/news/advertising-branding/advances-ma-...
So the fact that reddit got ignored for a few years, both to its detriment (having to beg for money) and to its benefit (not getting eaten/squished) is mostly just a byproduct of advance/newhouse's "buy all the things, figure out what to do with them later" strategy.
Re: Left Alone by Its Owner, Reddit Soars
#10"If the leader of the free world stops by" - sorry, he's what?