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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

#21

Post by g0lden »

seiji wrote: post #15
jds375 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

good point

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

#22

Post by Tohhou »

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).

There are reddit admins who poison reddit ads, because they can freely place ads on subreddits without cost. It's annoying.

The reddit ads system could be far better and without the corruption. It does cost more and is less effective than Facebook ads even for very specific subreddits, and it costs a ton more than it's worth even when there is no one else buying ad space in a subreddit.

Correct me if I'm wrong if this has changed.

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

#23

Post by adventured »

seiji wrote: post #15
jds375 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'd suggest that Imgur will be a nearly complete replacement option for Reddit (no coincidence, it's intentional). At the rate Imgur is increasing in size, and the rate at which they're moving toward social, this is seemingly just a matter of time now.

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

#24

Post by Havoc »

onebaddude wrote: post #13
Havoc wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.

Fair point - building a community is easier if you've got a bunch of community's that are effectively neighbors.

The other thing I just realized is that the smaller subreddits benefit from elitism - as ugly as that sounds. i.e. /r/pics is driven by raw masses, while /r/turnips would likely be driven by a small group of die-hards.

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

#25

Post by codingdave »

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's problem is not its business model. It is that they are more focused on being a household name than being a successful business. They are running under the old assumption that if you get enough eyes on your site, somehow you will monetize it.

But that assumption is based on the premise that your visitors are coming to your site because you offer something of value. They need to refocus on doing exactly that - offering value to people, not just entertainment. Entertainment drives ads, but true value drives direct cash flow.

The gifts are really just a variation on the ad theme - get enough traffic that people will leave the core functions of the site, and go buy something. This is dangerous - both gifts and gold subscriptions are making an income by monetizing the pop culture value of reddit. If/when reddit is no longer a hub of pop culture, those income streams will vanish.

They have some time, while those income streams still work, to develop core functions that are a valuable product in their own right, and learn how to monetize those functions. I'd encourage them to start on that path immediately, so they can stabilize themselves as a real business before their pop culture status fades.

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

#26

Post by rhizome »

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…

Quality of the site as a whole, both subs and comments.

Again, you're assuming that the presence of additional advertising will have no effect on the content. Perhaps your example webboard always sucked, you know?

One additional way to look at it is to gauge whether your webboard is more popular and/or more highly trafficked than its related subreddits. This last point doesn't necessarily speak to content quality, but it does relate to the relationship and motivations of its community.

A tenet of advertising is to maintain a blindspot for self-reflectivity, to assume that everything would be the same whether they were present or not. Leaving aside the economics of production, for a simple example of TV shows, a lack of advertising would enable longer shows and thus more content, which is what people presumably watch these shows for. A negligible number of people watch TV only for the advertising content, and I think we can agree that a station that is only comprised of advertising would not be very popular. QVC will never get the ratings that "Duck Dynasty" does, much less one composed entirely of 30sec spots.

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

#27

Post by username223 »

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.

You're making a huge, possibly fatal assumption that Seiji views human beings as anything other than clicking machines attached to credit cards, there to be exploited.

As Kant said: "view people always as a means, never as an end."

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

#28

Post by username223 »

seiji wrote: post #15
jds375 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

What else is there? Any forum with threads, voting, and karma. The software is freely available, in multiple forms.

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

#29

Post by raverbashing »

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…

" you can achieve profitability within the next 2 months by merely moving away from AWS to a more cost-effective website hosting "

Wow, are they really doing that???!

I can understand Netflix doing it, but for Reddit it's like flushing money

really

Rackspace, make them an offer!

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

#30

Post by seiji »

username223 wrote: post #27
rhizome wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

You're making a huge, possibly fatal assumption that Seiji views human beings as anything other than clicking machines attached to credit cards, there to be exploited. As Kant said: "view people always as a means, never as an end."

Just for posterity: that's not my view, but that is the exact view of visionary sv asshole ceos (note: not of the good ceos, just the jerk ceos).

In their eyes, you only exist as "traffic" for them to exploit. You are not an individual. You have no life. You are a finger attached to a pointing device attached to a credit card.

Their goal in life is to divert Internet traffic to their own sites by any means necessary to increase their own traffic numbers (views, hits, sessions, clicks, impressions, ...) thereby increasing their own perceived worth so they can spout their vanity asshole metrics off to boards/investors/audiences.

[Note: I may be bitter about jerks exploiting the world raking in more success/money/exposure than non-exploiting builders.]

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