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Reddit launches image uploads, ditching alliance with Imgur

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Re: Reddit launches image uploads, ditching alliance with Imgur

#211

Post by personjerry »

conceit wrote: post #201
raverbashing wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"You either die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain" (or until you get an investment from less ethical companies) But to be honest monetizing things like imgurl is hard. Most of the users cost more than they earn I think with adblockers becomming more common we'll have to think of better ways of coming out with feasible arrangements. Sharing bandwidth between users? JS bitcoin mining (or…

> Most of the users cost more than they earn I call bullshit. Can you spell datamining? also: native advertising.

That's rather hard to do if your site mainly serves hotlinked or embedded images. You don't have the level of interaction required for meaningful data.

Re: Reddit launches image uploads, ditching alliance with Imgur

#212

Post by onli »

lmm wrote: post #193
onli wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

None of that is a dark pattern. A dark pattern is an UI design that motivates users to use the program/site in a way profitable to the site, but contrary to users' interest. To trick people, see http://darkpatterns.org/ . Redirecting to the whole page instead of the link is just a hotlink protection (as debatable as that is for an image hoster). Animated overlays in mobile is just shitty advertising and UX. But no da…

Having links that used to be hotlinks no longer be hotlinks is a dark pattern; also URLs that look like hotlinks (ending in .jpg or similar) but aren't. I'd argue that serving ads sometimes but not always is a dark pattern (particularly if they use cookies or similar to never serve ads to the original uploader).

Again, no. A dark pattern is an UI that makes the user do something he does not want. The best example is linkedin trying to get people to spam their contacts with invites. The pre-checked "subscribe to the newsletter" checkbox is a dark pattern. Same is the checkbox you need to check to not subscribe to the newsletter.

A hotlink is no user interface, changing its behaviour is not a dark pattern. Serving ads never is one (though ads itself can use dark patterns), regardless whether the uploader sees them or not. Those are different kind of tricks that have (edit: almost) nothing to do with what the term dark pattern describes.

Edit: I'd argue that links that used to be hotlinks not being hotlinks can maybe be part of a dark pattern. If an UI tried to get people to share a site, and the people do that only because they think the links are hotlinks, then that UI could be a dark pattern and the non-hotlinks a part of that. But the dark pattern is then the UI presenting the hotlink, the "share this image directly" widget, not the hotlink itself.

Re: Reddit launches image uploads, ditching alliance with Imgur

#213

Post by onli »

conceit wrote: post #205
onli wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. Advertising can also just provide information. It is also not an UI.

It's a UI element and a UI with just one element is an UI already, so an UI-element is itself an UI. Let's argue semantics on a Site for Hackers.

Advertising is a verb (or a genre). It is not an ad. An ad itself can use dark patterns (good example: the skype ads looking like UI elements) – but that does not make advertising itself one.

Re: Reddit launches image uploads, ditching alliance with Imgur

#214

Post by onli »

Shivetya wrote: post #194
onli wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

None of that is a dark pattern. A dark pattern is an UI design that motivates users to use the program/site in a way profitable to the site, but contrary to users' interest. To trick people, see http://darkpatterns.org/ . Redirecting to the whole page instead of the link is just a hotlink protection (as debatable as that is for an image hoster). Animated overlays in mobile is just shitty advertising and UX. But no da…

using reddit on mobile when viewing imgur content was horribly painful with their app spam covering the top

That is quite possible :) I'm not disputing that.

Re: Reddit launches image uploads, ditching alliance with Imgur

#215

Post by JamesMcMinn »

Others wrote: post #25
zitterbewegung wrote: post #18

Having a third party host Reddit's images gave away a bunch of control to the point that imgur has its own community based upon the site . At the time Reddit didn't have the resources to make a competitor but this seems to be a good move now that imgur is doing dark patterns.

What dark patterns are they implementing?

I often get "authentic" looking "Your Android device is 63% infected! Install this software to fix it" scams on mobile when opening gifv files on imgur. To top it off, they make my phone vibrate and hitting back just reloads the page and causes another long vibration, which is infuriating. If that isn't a dark pattern, I don't know what is.

It only happens when coming from reddit if I open an incognito tab in chrome (chrome opens incognito tabs in the foreground, rather than the background, which saves me a bunch of taps). It never happens if I use normal tabs, which leads me to believe they're only doing it for non-reddit referers or direct links.

Re: Reddit launches image uploads, ditching alliance with Imgur

#216

Post by shawabawa3 »

onli wrote: post #212
lmm wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having links that used to be hotlinks no longer be hotlinks is a dark pattern; also URLs that look like hotlinks (ending in .jpg or similar) but aren't. I'd argue that serving ads sometimes but not always is a dark pattern (particularly if they use cookies or similar to never serve ads to the original uploader).

Again, no. A dark pattern is an UI that makes the user do something he does not want. The best example is linkedin trying to get people to spam their contacts with invites. The pre-checked "subscribe to the newsletter" checkbox is a dark pattern. Same is the checkbox you need to check to not subscribe to the newsletter. A hotlink is no user interface, changing its behaviour is not a dark pattern. Serving ads never is…

I just disagree with your definition of dark pattern then

Re: Reddit launches image uploads, ditching alliance with Imgur

#217

Post by lmm »

onli wrote: post #212
lmm wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having links that used to be hotlinks no longer be hotlinks is a dark pattern; also URLs that look like hotlinks (ending in .jpg or similar) but aren't. I'd argue that serving ads sometimes but not always is a dark pattern (particularly if they use cookies or similar to never serve ads to the original uploader).

Again, no. A dark pattern is an UI that makes the user do something he does not want. The best example is linkedin trying to get people to spam their contacts with invites. The pre-checked "subscribe to the newsletter" checkbox is a dark pattern. Same is the checkbox you need to check to not subscribe to the newsletter. A hotlink is no user interface, changing its behaviour is not a dark pattern. Serving ads never is…

> Edit: I'd argue that links that used to be hotlinks not being hotlinks can maybe be part of a dark pattern. If an UI tried to get people to share a site, and the people do that only because they think the links are hotlinks, then that UI could be a dark pattern and the non-hotlinks a part of that. But the dark pattern is then the UI presenting the hotlink, the "share this image directly" widget, not the hotlink itself.

I'd say the URL itself can be UI - users know what a URL to a direct image looks like and how that differs from what a URL to a page tends to look like.

Re: Reddit launches image uploads, ditching alliance with Imgur

#218

Post by SixSigma »

redthrowaway wrote: post #163
kristofferR wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah. https://sli.mg seems to be the new imgur. I wonder how long until they start going downhill. I like their moderation log though, that's a good step.

sli.mg is the new imgur for /r/the_donald, and other subs whose content imgur regularly censors. I haven't really seen it used "in the wild" on more mainstream subs. It does have a nice, clean and minimalistic interface, similar to what imgur used to have.

It was started in response to censorship of fatpeoplehate content.

Here's the AMA

https://reddit.com/r/The_Donald/comments/4erynj/we_are_slimg...

Re: Reddit launches image uploads, ditching alliance with Imgur

#219

Post by oneloop »

conceit wrote: post #201
raverbashing wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"You either die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain" (or until you get an investment from less ethical companies) But to be honest monetizing things like imgurl is hard. Most of the users cost more than they earn I think with adblockers becomming more common we'll have to think of better ways of coming out with feasible arrangements. Sharing bandwidth between users? JS bitcoin mining (or…

> Most of the users cost more than they earn I call bullshit. Can you spell datamining? also: native advertising.

I would be very interested to hear what data you think imgur could sell.

Also, I know that on a website like imgur native pays about as little as display. The fact that imgur tried Taboola a while ago and eventually ditched it seems to corroborate this.

Re: Reddit launches image uploads, ditching alliance with Imgur

#220

Post by userbinator »

GhotiFish wrote: post #77
yxlx wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've seen it. It depends on the referrer. When coming from Reddit, visitors will not be redirected.

test link: http://i.imgur.com/PhY2HUP.jpg is this happening for anyone in thread? maybe try holding down CTRL and hammering the link to see if it's a probability thing? I have never seen the behavior being described.

I've never seen imgur redirect either. I suspect it's user-agent related.
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