- Reddit was a crazy comeback story which directly benefited from the implosion of Digg as the latter sought to become a mainstream advertising business. Digg always struggled with the dilemma of whether or not it should cave to a vocal minority or not. I’ve argued in the past that they did it too much, while Mark Zuckerberg early on set a precedent that he wasn’t gonna cave to user criticism of the News feed just because some people found it “creepy.”
Reddit doesn’t have the luxury of making any of those decisions on behalf of users. You can’t change communities midstream because you now want to build a scalable ad business with no hate speech.
Yeah, I'm glad that Hubski is what it is and that we have no intent of viewing our content as a "gold mine." If we can pull enough donations to keep the lights on, that is A-Okay by me. Reddit really is a "weird beast." So much content, such an interesting study in human behavior, on so many levels. They seem to have staying power though. The sites still wildly popular. How to monetize is another story...
YOU KNOW IT! Break me hubski!!! Make me cry uncle! I challenge each of you and all of you! BRING THE PAIN! In all seriousness - I think if everyone chucked a fiver at this - we'd be done for the year. Please consider throwing a couple of bucks to give mk, TNG, b_b, and the others a break. They've been fronting this site for years. Let's take our turn.
My wife's former boss linked to an AMA on Facebook yesterday. She's in her 60s. On the one hand, that's reach. On the other hand, she's no taste-maker. The core that made Reddit what it was is long gone, and what's left is a sprawling , inconsistent mess with a lot of baggage. They seem to have staying power though. The sites still wildly popular.
How to monetize is another story...
Are we talking about the same Buzzfeed here? Also, I wouldn't say that Buzzfeed is the only website using Reddit to find content. I've certainly seen parts of reddit being cited/quoted by the NYT and the BBC, for instance. I also think the article (like the one it cites) is trying to make a news story from very little. It cites a quote from Ohanian from 1.5 years ago that clearly (in hindsight) didn't play out. Like so many reddit initiatives, Upvoted had some good ideas behind it, but was ultimately not very well thought-out. With that being said, I really don't expect that anyone (not even Ohanian himself) thought that it would be the website's "savior". Buzzfeed also does stellar original journalism in politics and business and technology
Buzzfeed has always been about positivity
Buzzfeed basically uses it's piles of shit to fund good journalism.Buzzfeed also does stellar original journalism in politics and business and technology
Upvoted existed because Alex at Paragon talked Alexis into it. Paragon didn't like the direction Upvoted was going, so Upvoted died. It's fair to say that Ohanian thought original content and journalism would be Reddit's savior - he fired Victoria a week after hiring away half of The Verge's video team.