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Reddit is a great platform to disguise sponsored content as organic. If you are really good the users won't even notice. I wonder whether they have started mone

Reddit is a great platform to disguise sponsored content as organic. If you are really good the users won't even notice. I wonder whether they have started monetizing that yet. There is clearly a lot of it on Reddit. It's just not clear whether it is with the help of Reddit or despite of them.

maxerickson 11y ago
You don't even have to be particularly good. I made a remark that Carrie Fisher probably wasn't organically following @Starwars on Twitter on a Sunday afternoon and got lots of downvotes and several people ranting about how cynical it was to question the thing that got posted to reddit. They want to enjoy the manufactured whimsy, not question it.
lawpoop 11y ago
Can you describe this sponsored/organic content dichotomy? To get noticed, you have to have upvotes. If you have upvotes, that means that users appreciated the content. If, say, a company or person is promoting themselves and the community upvotes it, I don't see any problem with it. That's how it's supposed to work. But I don't think that's what you mean by 'disguise'. I would guess rather that you mean that some entity is paying the reddit the company to create artificial upvotes (i.e. not originating from users) and maybe even paid commenters. I personally would be surprised if there were a lot of this clearly happening (there's a number of people on reddit that make a 'career' out of debunking stories, identifying brigades, etc). Can you point to some popular posts presently on reddit that are examples of it?
- fweespeech 11y ago
  > Can you point to some popular posts presently on reddit that are examples of it? http://www.redditsecrets.com/buy-reddit-accounts http://www.redditsecrets.com/buy-reddit-accounts https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=725562.0 https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=725562.0 https://www.reddit.com/r/OutOfTheLoop/comments/32rr56/do_people_actually_sell_reddit_accounts/ https://www.reddit.com/r/OutOfTheLoop/comments/32rr56/do_peo... You can build a small voting ring for a few hundred dollars to boost posts. The problem is all of Reddit's countermeasures to reduce spam made it hard to tell how successful these things are. However, the fact people are still buying in 2016, implies at least some people succeed at it. > Can you describe this sponsored/organic content dichotomy? Really, only Reddit can say how bad this problem is but my guess its non-negligible and cutting into their monetization via native ads as its basically an end run around paying Reddit.
  - RubyPinch 11y ago
    "However, the fact people are still buying in 2016, implies at least some people succeed at it." "However, the fact people are still sending money to random emails they get, implies at least some people get the money they were promised in return."
- anon987 11y ago
  http://www.slideshare.net/reddit/reddit-brands-of-the-year-2014-45902899 http://www.slideshare.net/reddit/reddit-brands-of-the-year-2... I assume that's the official Reddit SlideShare account.
- deathhand 11y ago
  If I then have a ring of people manipulating voting and nothing is done about it. Is it still organic? I can easily see the monetary incentive to such practices due to the traffic volumes. Heck I could even see it on HN. If I wanted my techy blog to be on the front page of HN I know I would land that dream job...
ageek123 11y ago
Isn't this basically what "native ads" are?
- untog 11y ago
  Native ads are usually signposted as such.
- pearjuice 11y ago
  No, that's product placement. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Product_placement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Product_placement
zaif 11y ago
I think a lot of it is the pseudo-intellectual nature of the site to make people feel like they are more knowledgeable. If it's already a pop culture topic, like Tesla or Netflix, the topics will drive interest and thereby upvotes. John Oliver did a similar episode about Native Advertising.
- forgetsusername 11y ago
  >If it's already a pop culture topic, like Tesla or Netflix, the topics will drive interest and thereby upvotes. And HN is different...how exactly? There's a definite air of superiority here, but I don't find the commentary any more insightful. Besides, "reddit" isn't a single entity.
  - diyorgasms 11y ago
    >Besides, "reddit" isn't a single entity. It's almost as if reddit is made up of millions of users and you can deduce the "average" or aggregate opinion of reddit by examining voting patterns.
    - TeMPOraL 11y ago
      Except those millions of users are divided among thousands of subreddits and don't all read or vote on the same stories. So no, you can't.
  - kbenson 11y ago
    > There's a definite air of superiority here, but I don't find the commentary any more insightful. Really? I do. Some subreddits approach what I see as a clear quality advantage in HN comments, but even then there's the occasional joke or non-sequitur. Which is fine. Reddit is not HN, and if they were the same, there would be less overall usefulness. I enjoy HN and its semi-official policy of down voting comments that are are jokes and don't contribute to the conversation (it's easy to joke on HN, just include something substantive to the conversation as well). On Reddit, even in the more serious subreddits and discussions, one-liner joke comments still pop up, because while they may not get many up votes on serious discussions, I rarely see them get down votes. Not that I don't enjoy jokes, but if I want that, I'll find the same (or a similar) discussion on Reddit. I just like that HN tries to keep people to a higher standard of conduct, because then that place exists.
pboutros 11y ago
Sounds like /r/hailcorporate is leaking! (but yes, totally agreed)
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
mrfusion 11y ago
Check out r/hailcorporate

maxerickson 11y ago

You don't even have to be particularly good. I made a remark that Carrie Fisher probably wasn't organically following @Starwars on Twitter on a Sunday afternoon and got lots of downvotes and several people ranting about how cynical it was to question the thing that got posted to reddit. They want to enjoy the manufactured whimsy, not question it.

lawpoop 11y ago

Can you describe this sponsored/organic content dichotomy? To get noticed, you have to have upvotes. If you have upvotes, that means that users appreciated the content. If, say, a company or person is promoting themselves and the community upvotes it, I don't see any problem with it. That's how it's supposed to work. But I don't think that's what you mean by 'disguise'. I would guess rather that you mean that some entity is paying the reddit the company to create artificial upvotes (i.e. not originating from users) and maybe even paid commenters. I personally would be surprised if there were a lot of this clearly happening (there's a number of people on reddit that make a 'career' out of debunking stories, identifying brigades, etc). Can you point to some popular posts presently on reddit that are examples of it?

fweespeech 11y ago
> Can you point to some popular posts presently on reddit that are examples of it? http://www.redditsecrets.com/buy-reddit-accounts http://www.redditsecrets.com/buy-reddit-accounts https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=725562.0 https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=725562.0 https://www.reddit.com/r/OutOfTheLoop/comments/32rr56/do_people_actually_sell_reddit_accounts/ https://www.reddit.com/r/OutOfTheLoop/comments/32rr56/do_peo... You can build a small voting ring for a few hundred dollars to boost posts. The problem is all of Reddit's countermeasures to reduce spam made it hard to tell how successful these things are. However, the fact people are still buying in 2016, implies at least some people succeed at it. > Can you describe this sponsored/organic content dichotomy? Really, only Reddit can say how bad this problem is but my guess its non-negligible and cutting into their monetization via native ads as its basically an end run around paying Reddit.
- RubyPinch 11y ago
  "However, the fact people are still buying in 2016, implies at least some people succeed at it." "However, the fact people are still sending money to random emails they get, implies at least some people get the money they were promised in return."
anon987 11y ago
http://www.slideshare.net/reddit/reddit-brands-of-the-year-2014-45902899 http://www.slideshare.net/reddit/reddit-brands-of-the-year-2... I assume that's the official Reddit SlideShare account.
deathhand 11y ago
If I then have a ring of people manipulating voting and nothing is done about it. Is it still organic? I can easily see the monetary incentive to such practices due to the traffic volumes. Heck I could even see it on HN. If I wanted my techy blog to be on the front page of HN I know I would land that dream job...

ageek123 11y ago

Isn't this basically what "native ads" are?

untog 11y ago
Native ads are usually signposted as such.
pearjuice 11y ago
No, that's product placement. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Product_placement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Product_placement

zaif 11y ago

I think a lot of it is the pseudo-intellectual nature of the site to make people feel like they are more knowledgeable. If it's already a pop culture topic, like Tesla or Netflix, the topics will drive interest and thereby upvotes. John Oliver did a similar episode about Native Advertising.

forgetsusername 11y ago
>If it's already a pop culture topic, like Tesla or Netflix, the topics will drive interest and thereby upvotes. And HN is different...how exactly? There's a definite air of superiority here, but I don't find the commentary any more insightful. Besides, "reddit" isn't a single entity.
- diyorgasms 11y ago
  >Besides, "reddit" isn't a single entity. It's almost as if reddit is made up of millions of users and you can deduce the "average" or aggregate opinion of reddit by examining voting patterns.
  - TeMPOraL 11y ago
    Except those millions of users are divided among thousands of subreddits and don't all read or vote on the same stories. So no, you can't.
- kbenson 11y ago
  > There's a definite air of superiority here, but I don't find the commentary any more insightful. Really? I do. Some subreddits approach what I see as a clear quality advantage in HN comments, but even then there's the occasional joke or non-sequitur. Which is fine. Reddit is not HN, and if they were the same, there would be less overall usefulness. I enjoy HN and its semi-official policy of down voting comments that are are jokes and don't contribute to the conversation (it's easy to joke on HN, just include something substantive to the conversation as well). On Reddit, even in the more serious subreddits and discussions, one-liner joke comments still pop up, because while they may not get many up votes on serious discussions, I rarely see them get down votes. Not that I don't enjoy jokes, but if I want that, I'll find the same (or a similar) discussion on Reddit. I just like that HN tries to keep people to a higher standard of conduct, because then that place exists.

pboutros 11y ago

Sounds like /r/hailcorporate is leaking! (but yes, totally agreed)

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

mrfusion 11y ago

Check out r/hailcorporate