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Reddit needs help

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Re: Reddit needs help

#161

Post by nmftt »

Devilboy wrote: post #114
jedberg wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for the suggestions. Some we have tried, others we would like to, and some are totally new. The big problem is that we spend most of our time just keeping the site up and don't have time to focus on these ideas, and Conde is unwilling to invest. We're hoping the reddit gold money gives us the flexibility to bring in the talent we need to make some of those ideas happen.

You should really get a Flattr button too, it's starting to get traction now.

You should also ask them about their "Flattr for comments" model. I can't remember where I heard about it, it might not even be implemented yet. Anyways, the idea is to give the site hosting the user generated content (comments etc.) part of the revenue. When you've upvoted a comment you could get the option to Flattr it, if you have added Flattr to you profile etc.

Re: Reddit needs help

#162

Post by mkramlich »

ww520 wrote: post #86

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…

Yes I think they have a Maserati problem. Or rather, they could have a Maserati problem if they simply flipped the right switch, given the high traffic and community/fanbase they now have. Most startups would love to have their problem.

Re: Reddit needs help

#163

Post by qwzybug »

leftnode wrote: post #95

Do what incredibly successful SomethingAwful does: it's pretty much free to browse and read (but saturated with ads) or you can pay $10 for life, and rid yourself of most ads and post content. It removes 99% of the shitheads and creates a great community. You can also buy upgrades like an avatar, no-ads, a custom title, personal messages, etc.

SA also wields the banhammer with wild abandon. For people who don't toe the line, the $10 turns into a subscription. The army of mods needed to keep the revolving door going is large, but I think they like their jobs.

Unfortunately the last several years of SA have revealed that this model doesn't really scale either, at least with regards to maintaining a vibrant community and avoiding the Digg effect. I think they should have started raising the rates about 2004.

Re: Reddit needs help

#164

Post by nostrademons »

zach wrote: post #156
nostrademons wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're asking people to subscribe, not to donate. A subscription is a recurring revenue stream.

Yeah, I'm just probably not being imaginative enough. Even if you give someone a tiny bit of status that says they're a member, that's what they're "paying for," even if it costs nothing. And all the psychic benefits just happen to be lurking behind that. I just can't believe this is where you go to before exhausting everything else, though. Just up and asking your customers to give you money like this has got to cha…

"Just up and asking your customers to give you money like this has got to change your relationship, just like lending or giving money to a friend, right?"

When taken out of context, that sounds remarkably absurd. ;-)

It's an interesting development, simply because most businesses throughout history have demanded that you give them money before you receive service. Or they bill you afterwards with the full force of law behind their threats. Very few will give you the service first and then ask nicely for money.

I'm hoping that it works out, simply because if it doesn't, I'd bet that we won't see very many businesses using this strategy in the future. OTOH, I have no plans to subscribe - Reddit just isn't worth all that much to me.

Re: Reddit needs help

#165

Post by nostrademons »

blhack wrote: post #129
jedberg wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for the suggestions. Some we have tried, others we would like to, and some are totally new. The big problem is that we spend most of our time just keeping the site up and don't have time to focus on these ideas, and Conde is unwilling to invest. We're hoping the reddit gold money gives us the flexibility to bring in the talent we need to make some of those ideas happen.

How much would it really take to replace the ads on there now with google ads?

They had Google AdSense there when Reddit first launched, before they made their first ad deal with Federated Media. I'm not privy to what the numbers were, but I imagine they weren't good.

Re: Reddit needs help

#166

Post by axod »

jedberg wrote: post #108
shawndrost wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can't find a link for this, but one of the employees mentioned that it was related to Conde Nast's arcane rules about buying and managing servers.

It has nothing to do with that. It is simply that EC2 offers us the best bang for the buck for our requirements (one of the main ones being able to spin up a lot of iron very quickly).

Surely the traffic/load isn't that variable? Seems like even a VPS provider (linode/slicehost/etc) would offer far more bang for the buck.

The pricing for bandwidth alone on EC2 is simply insane.

Re: Reddit needs help

#167

Post by [deleted] »

staunch wrote: post #149
il wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've had experience successfully monetizing all sorts of low-quality traffic, and I can tell you that it's possible to get decent CPM from any type of users, even users like redditors who don't click on ads as much. You should be able to easily pull at least $2 CPM from general/frontpage reddit traffic, and probably closer to $10 CPM from specific subreddits. At 280M pageviews, that's over $500K a month in revenue yo…

For another perspective from someone with experience: I'd say $500k is about 2-3x times higher than what's reasonable to expect, without a really good direct sales.

[deleted]

Re: Reddit needs help

#168

Post by axod »

vaksel wrote: post #96
jbooth wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

wouldn't even have to do that, right now their ads suck...they are either "hey pay us $20-$30 to advertise on reddit", thanks for not using adblock, buying some reddit schwag, yay reddit, and once in a while you see Amazon or some anime shows ads. that's it...why can't they go to Honda and get them to pay them money to promote buying a Civic? or Coca Cola? etc etc/

Because the Reddit userbase they have cultivated is (IMHO) not a good one to advertise to.

The userbase is anti-consumerist. They HATE things like Coca-Cola. They hate TV. They detest adverts etc etc etc

Re: Reddit needs help

#169

Post by thaumaturgy »

ErrantX wrote: post #82
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…

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!

Subscriptions are a funny thing. But first, I'm an AdBlock user, and I recommend it for my clients (http://www.robsheldon.com/adblockplus).

If Reddit immediately offered a subscription service and changed nothing else about their site ... I probably wouldn't subscribe at any price. Reddit is a bit of an occasional guilty pleasure for me, and if it went away, I would write that off as one less distraction. I'm aware that Redditors on the whole have accomplished some pretty great things in their own right, so something like that ought to exist, but I just couldn't justify the cost to me.

BUT! If Reddit required a paid subscription in order to post a comment or story, I would actually be more motivated to spend money on that. It would dramatically change the nature of the site, into one that I think would be more attractive -- to me.

That's just me though, and I'm not a very good example of any kind of business model. ;-) (Nor do I think Reddit actually should do this -- it would be a bad business move.)

Re: Reddit needs help

#170

Post by blhack »

jedberg wrote: post #105
Zak wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I bought a t-shirt from kn0thing at startup school a few years ago, but I can't really see paying for reddit now. I wish them luck in finding a business model that works for them.

> but I can't really see paying for reddit now. If I may ask, what did we do to lose you?

If you don't mind my answering this...

Above here, I said that I would pay you $5 a month, and I would...but the only reason for that is that you I've talked to you on here (hacker news) before. To me the people runnign reddit are real. To me, you're a friend and I'm throwing $5 into the can that is duct-taped to your kegerator because you let me drink it for free...

...but for most people? What does reddit offer me that I can't get elsewhere? Honestly, a lot of the submissions have gone completely to shit. /r/pics? /r/askreddit? /r/iama? I'm not saying that it is your fault, but there isn't, at least to me, any value there.

Granted, and I'm sure you could look in your logs to see how much I visit your site (it's a lot), but if it went away...would I be sad? Uhhh...maybe a little bit, but not really. Personally, beyond having talked to you here, I don't feel much of a connection to you guys, and I don't feel much of a connection to the community.

Again, I'm not saying that this is exactly your guys' fault, just that it has happened.

One service that I do pay for is usenet, even though I almost never use it (my provider gives me 10 gigs a month and I think I have about a half a terrabye of available transfer hat has just rolled over for the last 5 years or so.) I pay for it because it makes me happy to see what the people at my provider (easynews) are doing. The reason that I signed up to begin with is because I saw them as a mirror on sourceforge. To me, although this is probably completely incorrect, they're fighting the good fight, and I want to support that.

But what are you guys doing to make me voluntarily buy you a beer every month? Reddit doesn't give me anything that I can't get from here, or fark, or slashdot, or my own website. Again, I'll pay you guys $5, but I'm the exception.

To me, you have to ask yourself what you guys have done to make yourselves stand out. If the donation is strictly voluntary, what motivation do I have to give it.

I'll tell you that one reason I am a totalfarker is that Drew Curtis seems like a real guy to me. Other than you, I have no idea who is behind reddit (spez and kn0thing, but I haven't talked to them in a long while).

Again, please don't misunderstand what I'm saying. I love you guys, I'm addicted to your site, I love it...but am I the norm?

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