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Ask HN: is Reddit becoming an asset comparable to Facebook and Twitter?

7 points by sage_joch ↗ HN
I noticed a new, spiffed up login, and it just occurred to me that Conde Nast must be shitting their pants right about now. In 2006 they picked up a startup on the order of tens of millions, that can now be mentioned in the same breath as Facebook and Twitter. Am I wrong?

11 comments

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t0
It has grown quite a bit. It doesn't make much money, so it's probably more of a side project for Nast.
minimaxir
Yishan made a post (which I can't find) that Reddit is not making much money, if any, which is why they're pushing Reddit Gold more recently.

Any other traditional revenue streams (like more aggresive advertising) will annoy the Reddit userbase, so it's a dilemma.

sage_joch
They have an asset that has become an integral part of the culture, and I don't think that's an understatement. How much would something like that go for on the open market today?
minimaxir
This particular asset has become an integral part of culture for good and bad reasons. (i.e. the Boston Bomber misidentification incident) Reddit has a lot of risk compared to FB and Twitter, even with their own misforgivings.
mtowle
Just a guess: I think they're exactly where they want to be. They're taking the "don't end the party at 11" principle to the extreme and refusing to (openly) monetize until the end of the world. Gold seems intentionally silly, almost like they're playing dumb. If I were a betting man, I'd say their route to bags of money would be to "fake upvote" certain posts. Like Twitter's paid endorsements, only super sneaky. Ask Taco Bell or Coca-Cola or whoever to come up with something interesting they can throw on r/funny or r/TIL or whatever, and as long as it doesn't scream "phony," Reddit will make sure it gets to the top. (That's not an accusation, just a hunch.)

>It's not the people who vote that count. It's the people who count the votes.

Joseph Stalin

switch33
To be honest, I think despite reddit being less profitable than both. Reddit has always been a better community.
mcintyre1994
It's a great asset, but I'm not too sure about that comparison. I think Reddit, for now at least, really lacks thought leaders. Facebook has all of a person's friends, and so it kind of covers the thought leaders for that person to some extent. Twitter has the world's thought leaders, people whose views are very highly valued - see the AP getting hacked causing a noticeable drop in the world's markets for example.

Reddit is a bit trickier. It has a lot of localised power - for example the live Boston bombers article was lightyears ahead of the media. It pretty much drove the media wave trying to initially determine who they were. It even has the world's thought leaders dropping in (Obama IAMA). But I think it really lacks the power to consistently put thought leaders in front of people. It's easy to argue it's a stronger community, but I don't think the average social network consumer really cares about the overall community.

rm999
Part of the problem for reddit is most people don't realize what it's good for. The subreddit system has led to a diverse set of amazing communities that could appeal to almost anyone, but when I ask my friends if they use reddit they usually associate it with a site for memes and cat pictures.
mcintyre1994
Yep, I agree. A lot of that is because they need default subreddits to avoid just showing a blank page, and their choices seem..barely better than that blank page. I guess the big example is /r/atheism, some of whose posts are insanely offputting. And then, like you say, /r/pics or whatever, "memes and cat pictures". It's a shame their selection of defaults give such a misleading view of the community at large. I'm not sure exactly how to fix it - rotate in highly rated posts from non-NSFW subreddits at random for non logged in users? At least that'd give some variety.
27182818284
I've always found it to be usenet version 2.0, but for some reason people get really offended when I make that comparison.