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Reddit reaches for profits through a geek-culture bazaar

reuters.com

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Re: Reddit reaches for profits through a geek-culture bazaar

#11

Post by jds375 »

minimaxir wrote: post #10
onedev wrote: post #8

Two words for ya reddit: "Feed Ads" (aka inserting ads in between pieces of organic content/stories) It works for Facebook, it works for Twitter, it will work for you. The only thing is you have to be careful how you present it and design it into the existing platform.

Feed Ads would cause a user revolt overnight . Reddit is caught between a rock and a hard place since users like Reddit because of the nonintrusive ads.

It's so true. It would be much to risky to do that. Reddit could risk a Digg-like exodus if people got too pissed off. I think a more viable strategy would be to somehow expand the reach of reddit so that it isn't merely a replaceable social media/news site.

Re: Reddit reaches for profits through a geek-culture bazaar

#12

Post by Major_Grooves »

seunosewa wrote: post #2

Dear Reddit, Making money on the Internet is a solved problem. You just need to sell ads. Please suspend these nerdy business experiments and just focus on improving and promoting your ad platform. That is literally all you need to do. And even if you choose not to do that, you can achieve profitability within the next 2 months by merely moving away from AWS to a more cost-effective website hosting platform, since ho…

They could think about allowing geo-targetting of adverts. I'd love to advertise on certain subreddits, but only if I could specify the adverts only show in the UK. There must be people who feel the same in other countries. Pretty much every comparable platform - e.g. StumbleUpon - allows geotargetting of adverts. I'm sure they're missing out on loads of advertisers.

Re: Reddit reaches for profits through a geek-culture bazaar

#13

Post by onebaddude »

Havoc wrote: post #7
fuckpig wrote: post #3

Reddit's real product has always been its hipness. You introduce something on Reddit, and 1000 bots-or-people "upvote" it, and suddenly the press picks up on the story. How does this translate into dollars and cents? Reddit could use its platform to popularize new hip counterculture products. When advertisers purchase ad space, the real ads would be in the links and comments. All it takes is about a dozen people to u…

>Reddit's real product has always been its hipness. I disagree. Their strength (in my view) is that its a build your own community DIY. If you feel strongly about turnips then start a turnip subreddit. vb forum etc doesn't have that flexibility. EDIT: FML...someone claimed /r/turnips already.

>I disagree.

I think it's both. Your turnip site instantly becomes the hippest turnip site due to it's location on Reddit.

Re: Reddit reaches for profits through a geek-culture bazaar

#14

Post by seiji »

calbear81 wrote: post #5
seunosewa wrote: post #2

Dear Reddit, Making money on the Internet is a solved problem. You just need to sell ads. Please suspend these nerdy business experiments and just focus on improving and promoting your ad platform. That is literally all you need to do. And even if you choose not to do that, you can achieve profitability within the next 2 months by merely moving away from AWS to a more cost-effective website hosting platform, since ho…

Reddit has always been anti-ads especially since they feel strongly that their userbase hates ads and would actually revolt in a mass uprising if Reddit started getting more aggressive with the ads they show. I'm actually with you about them finding more cost effective ways to serve all that content. I wonder if they should think about using peer-to-peer caching using HTML5/webworkers and other distributed caching me…

revolt in a mass uprising

What actually happens: the old timers complain for three days then just put up with it.

People still conflate online complaining with meaning and desires of the entire user base. Sadly, online comments aren't independent statistical samples from your entire user base.

What's the rate again? 2% of users actively participate in sites while 98% happily browse and put up with ads?

Re: Reddit reaches for profits through a geek-culture bazaar

#15

Post by seiji »

jds375 wrote: post #11
minimaxir wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Feed Ads would cause a user revolt overnight . Reddit is caught between a rock and a hard place since users like Reddit because of the nonintrusive ads.

It's so true. It would be much to risky to do that. Reddit could risk a Digg-like exodus if people got too pissed off. I think a more viable strategy would be to somehow expand the reach of reddit so that it isn't merely a replaceable social media/news site.

could risk a Digg-like exodus

That only happens if there is somewhere else to jump to. What else is there?

We don't use the best of all possible systems, we use the best available system, which is always highly imperfect.

Re: Reddit reaches for profits through a geek-culture bazaar

#16

Post by rhizome »

seiji wrote: post #14
calbear81 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reddit has always been anti-ads especially since they feel strongly that their userbase hates ads and would actually revolt in a mass uprising if Reddit started getting more aggressive with the ads they show. I'm actually with you about them finding more cost effective ways to serve all that content. I wonder if they should think about using peer-to-peer caching using HTML5/webworkers and other distributed caching me…

revolt in a mass uprising What actually happens: the old timers complain for three days then just put up with it. People still conflate online complaining with meaning and desires of the entire user base. Sadly, online comments aren't independent statistical samples from your entire user base. What's the rate again? 2% of users actively participate in sites while 98% happily browse and put up with ads?

You're making a huge, possibly fatal, assumption about quality remaining constant.

Re: Reddit reaches for profits through a geek-culture bazaar

#17

Post by jokoon »

seunosewa wrote: post #2

Dear Reddit, Making money on the Internet is a solved problem. You just need to sell ads. Please suspend these nerdy business experiments and just focus on improving and promoting your ad platform. That is literally all you need to do. And even if you choose not to do that, you can achieve profitability within the next 2 months by merely moving away from AWS to a more cost-effective website hosting platform, since ho…

depends on the ads.

I think they're afraid of adblock

Re: Reddit reaches for profits through a geek-culture bazaar

#18

Post by seiji »

rhizome wrote: post #16
seiji wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

revolt in a mass uprising What actually happens: the old timers complain for three days then just put up with it. People still conflate online complaining with meaning and desires of the entire user base. Sadly, online comments aren't independent statistical samples from your entire user base. What's the rate again? 2% of users actively participate in sites while 98% happily browse and put up with ads?

You're making a huge, possibly fatal, assumption about quality remaining constant.

Quality of submissions or comments?

I was part of another forum-based company that went from zero advertising to full display advertising with banners and adsense (the ads brought in another $200k to $500k per month). Some of the vocal members (read: always bitchy about everything, even mild color or margin changes) complained at first, then went back to their normal bitching about everything else in the world.

All changes hurt at first, but we can't not change everything forever.

Re: Reddit reaches for profits through a geek-culture bazaar

#19

Post by orf »

jmduke wrote: post #6
seunosewa wrote: post #2

Dear Reddit, Making money on the Internet is a solved problem. You just need to sell ads. Please suspend these nerdy business experiments and just focus on improving and promoting your ad platform. That is literally all you need to do. And even if you choose not to do that, you can achieve profitability within the next 2 months by merely moving away from AWS to a more cost-effective website hosting platform, since ho…

My understanding about the advertising ecosystem on Reddit is such that the returns on the actual advertising platform are far, far worse than grassroots marketing (not even talking about sneaky stuff -- participating in the community, doing AMAs, generally just hanging around).

I've run a few adverts on Reddit and the returns were far better than Adsense, we got a lot of long-time customers through Reddit and plenty of clicks.

I really like the fact you can comment on the adverts as if they were a post, this lets people discuss (and hopefully praise) your company.

Re: Reddit reaches for profits through a geek-culture bazaar

#20

Post by g0lden »

seiji wrote: post #18
rhizome wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're making a huge, possibly fatal, assumption about quality remaining constant.

Quality of submissions or comments? I was part of another forum-based company that went from zero advertising to full display advertising with banners and adsense (the ads brought in another $200k to $500k per month). Some of the vocal members (read: always bitchy about everything, even mild color or margin changes) complained at first, then went back to their normal bitching about everything else in the world. All c…

So you have one decent example where such a change didnt really alter the quality of the site, yet that doesnt magically apply to every scenario.
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