REDDIT POPULARITY ON GOOGLE TRENDS https://i.imgur.com/oAGwCZc.png
COMPARED TO GOOGLE https://i.imgur.com/mEg0z43.png
Reddit can't build a better search engine
251–260 of 289 posts
Re: Reddit can't build a better search engine
#252Marketer perspective: you can not build a communication tool you find useful that won't end up being used to make money. It will get figured out. I could go into a bit more philosophical angle with reterritorialization done by capital, but I think it's much simpler to consider the following: between politics (where once any division in population is found, it becomes valuable instantly), classical business marketing…
What about stackoverflow?
The only thing I noticed on SO is sometimes having question titled in a more general way, with details being actually focused on a specific new framework, then discussion and answer showing how amazing the framework is for this use case. Which is also the only thing I can reasonably imagine being promoted, but incentives here are so closely aligned I can't even be mad honestly.
I don't know what happens on 'front page'/'trending' of SO and other other stackexchanges.
EDIT: I checked stats and SO has <15mln users. Part of it being the way it is comes from being relatively tiny and I honestly can't guess how expensive moderation on SO is.
Re: Reddit can't build a better search engine
#253I see reddit as a replacement for the old "forum" search function that Google used to have. It's an easy first place to check and see if someone has information able a very specific niche.
An example would be something like the UKVisa subreddit. I want to know if someone else has run into the same issue that I had with the god awful 3rd party visa processing website that the UK have. I'm not able to find that information of Google - the best I can hope for is something along the lines of a general guide for how to process a visa from an immigration law firm. But on Reddit there is almost certainly someone who has run into the exact same issue, as well as others who have been through the process and can answer from first hand knowledge.
Re: Reddit can't build a better search engine
#254Earlier quoted context omitted.
I can second this. Looking for a Bluetooth speaker and if I believed Reddit I am throwing money away if I’m not buying Anker. I’m sure it’s fine but it’s disproportionately represented in Reddit over other audiophile forums
I really like my Anker Bluetooth speaker, it's an old one that just keeps on working, lasted longer than Android phones. Listening to it now, every morning - the Anker love is real. ;)
If you need something cheap that lasts, Anker is your best bet. There are others that have longer lifetime, but they are from Sony, Bose or JBL and thus more expensive. My sister has the Soundcore for 2 years now.
Re: Reddit can't build a better search engine
#255I built https://www.unscatter.com using Reddit to source links for the search index. Last year I added Twitter as another source. I don't think it's a "better" search engine. It's a different lens through which to search. Reddit and Twitter are an information source for what people are talking about. This is why I limit my index to articles that have popped in my Reddit/Twitter input in the last 30 days, deleting any…
> Reddit and Twitter are an information source for what people are talking about. It's a source of information for what Reddit and Twitter owners want you to see. Both websites are heavily manipulated in a myriad of ways. (The simplest one is via massive amounts of accounts banned for wrongthink.) This is blatantly obvious if instead of passively absorbing news you deep-dive into a specific issue and then look up the…
What are some examples of this extreme and blatantly obvious manipulation? Certainly it happens but you're making it sound like we live in the Truman Show.
Re: Reddit can't build a better search engine
#256Search Reddit via Google: https://www.searchbettr.com/
Re: Reddit can't build a better search engine
#257I've searched for Reddit in the past because Reddit is the only site where I can get community answers to an important question. In those cases, the community aspect mattered to me - for example, I recently moved to Boston, so I solicited Bostonian's recommendations from r/boston; my partner and I were having troubles, and I wanted to hear from people who'd gone through similar experiences; I wanted to learn about co…
While there's a powerful inclination to take Reddit recommendations, it's also increasingly dangerous. Just from normal usage, it's increasingly apparent that a disturbing proportion of comments are astroturf. There's a flood of accounts that have generic names in the form of word-word-number or word_word_number, usually are only a few days or weeks old with little karma, and run around threads responding to everything until they're banned or cycled out for a new account.
This happens not just on political topics, but things related to brands. It's very clear that paid actors are out there attempting to manage public opinion about brands or advertise products.
IIRC, part of the original supposition was that produce related search results were flooded with spam sites promoting products...but the bar is far lower to do the same with Reddit accounts. You don't even need an email to create one, let alone a domain name or hosting.
There's a very real spam problem, but spam-fighting is stuck in the past.
Re: Reddit can't build a better search engine
#258I built https://www.unscatter.com using Reddit to source links for the search index. Last year I added Twitter as another source. I don't think it's a "better" search engine. It's a different lens through which to search. Reddit and Twitter are an information source for what people are talking about. This is why I limit my index to articles that have popped in my Reddit/Twitter input in the last 30 days, deleting any…
This is pretty cool but am wondering, how are you choosing which subreddits/tweets are indexed? I notice for instance "manga updates" is in the word cloud but a search for "kanye west" doesn't return any relevant results despite him being in the news a bunch lately for being kind of nuts.
I get the top 100 posts from the top 100 popular subreddits for the past hour (as defined by reddit). I then do some basic filtering on subreddits to exclude a few that are often in the top that I find are either mostly text or media content, I'm looking for links.
The lack of Kanye West content is interesting. I'm going to try to find some time this weekend to dive into that. The only thing I can think of is it's so well known less people are sharing links and more people are just making text posts on reddit about it.
However, it could be an indexing issue too. I'm using postgres for the index so maybe there is something there. I'll research that. Thanks for noticing and calling it out!
Re: Reddit can't build a better search engine
#259Earlier quoted context omitted.
how do you expect the producers of the content you consume to continue putting out the content you want to consume if they're unable to monetise that content?
Seriously. I don't get why people expect that they should pay nothing to watch their favorite content creators. Sure you bought an LTT water bottle, but make no mistake Google is a business, YouTube is a business and they are not providing these videos out of the goodness of their heart. If YouTube ever doesn't make sense (algorithmically, financially, or through whatever metric Google decides is important) Google wi…
Oh no, YouTube shuts down and we all have to go outside and read a book. Realistically, enough people will remain ignorant of ad blocking hygiene that YT will remain relevant to the big G for the foreseeable future. "What if everyone made the same choice?" We already know they don't.
Re: Reddit can't build a better search engine
#260I've searched for Reddit in the past because Reddit is the only site where I can get community answers to an important question. In those cases, the community aspect mattered to me - for example, I recently moved to Boston, so I solicited Bostonian's recommendations from r/boston; my partner and I were having troubles, and I wanted to hear from people who'd gone through similar experiences; I wanted to learn about co…
From the article, "The best way to fix the system is to prioritize websites that are there to share knowledge, not websites with their primary priority to make ad revenue." You know who shares valuable knowledge? Other humans who have personally experienced the knowledge I'm trying to acquire. In this context, Reddit IS the website that shares REAL knowledge. I agree I wouldn't search "restaurants near me" on reddit…
Google doesn't do this because no one is posting entries like "My trip to X city - Favorite Restaurants" or "Ski Trip - Awesome Demos" on their public personal blogs. There is not enough authentic raw data to work with so google is completely overwhelmed by SEO spam.
We get around this by specifically telling Google to prioritize results from Reddit as we "happen to know" that Reddit is a more-or-less reliable public forum where real people share their real opinions.
The same thing is already starting to happen though. Astro-turfing and bot spam working to manufacture opinion. Reddit is at least slightly resistant to this due to the nature of the arrangement/management of its communities.