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Ben Huh offers to buy Reddit
- MisterWebz 16y agoWell, this is getting very interesting.
- jacquesm 16y agoIs this guy actually in a position to follow through or is he just cleverly using the controversy to further his own goal without an actual intent to commit? I take it reddit would not be sold for 'pocket change'.
- enjo 16y agoThis wired article mentions that he likely did something close to $4M in revenue a year ago: http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/01/mf_cheezking/ http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/01/mf_cheezking/ If this is the sole source of income, then I doubt that they're in any position to afford Reddit. Although they definitely have the investor connections to probably roll it up.
- gyardley 16y agoThat Wired article mentioned that Cheezburger Network did 'over 200MM pageviews a month', so with $4MM in revenue for the year that's an RPM of well north of $1.50. Seriously, that's stellar given the quality of the inventory. Given that, I'm sure they could make a lot of money with Reddit - buying it would be a sound investment.
- davepeck 16y agoI suspect Ben Huh is _definitely_ in a position to follow through.
- jacquesm 16y agoGood, so how come he didn't follow protocol on this? After all, after such a stunt CN is likely going to give him the cold shoulder just for that. I can't imagine they're happy about this if he's for real. The redditors have been at odds with CN pretty much since day 5 of the take over or so, and every time I hear about them it's something like this. If they were going to dump reddit you'd think they would have done so long ago.
- madair 16y agoProtocol? You have a straight face while you're saying this? Protocol? As in, Wall St. & Main St. acquisitions and takeovers protocol? Seriously? You sure you don't want to delete that? It's on google, searchable, people might remember you said that. It's pretty funny. They might laugh.
- jacquesm 16y agoYes, I'm pretty sure I don't want to delete that. If you are serious about a takeover the first thing that would be smart is to not alienate the selling party by some dick move, such as blowing wide open your so-called quiet approach. That way the party you've approached no longer has the option to tell you quietly to go away. This is likely to piss them off, which is not going to work to your advantage, even if there is another episode to the whole thing. Remember that it is the seller that has something the buyer apparently wants (he's the one approaching). off-topic, but even if I were wrong, which I really don't think I am, I would still not delete that because I think that deleting stuff just because you 'might be wrong' is a stupid move, it makes everybody that replied in the thread look like an idiot. I'd rather be wrong and learn than to be wrong and pretend I didn't say something. What's so bad about being wrong? What's really funny here is that you, anonymous coward are suggesting that I do something dishonorable. Why don't you flesh out your profile a bit and we'll see if you stand by your words just as much as I do.
- rumpelstiltskin 16y agoReddit would benefit from more resources and less corporate interference. We can offer all of the above. How does working in the sweatshop that is the Cheezburger Network = less coporate interference? Edit for clarification: http://www.google.com/search?q=cheezburger+network+sweatshop http://www.google.com/search?q=cheezburger+network+sweatshop
- didip 16y agoI'm curious, why Cheezburger Network is a sweatshop? Any experience first hand? or employees there blog about how sucky the company is?
- tvon 16y agoI don't know myself, but the article has this link in the comments: http://gawker.com/5488509/inside-the-low+paying-cheezburger-empire http://gawker.com/5488509/inside-the-low+paying-cheezburger-... and that post has this comment: http://gawker.com/comment/20269906/ http://gawker.com/comment/20269906/ shrug
- madair 16y agoIt's a tabloid site of Nick Denton's so it must be true. Heh.
- MartinCron 16y agoI worked at Cheezburger until a few months ago. Here's the deal with the sweatshop charges. It comes down to three items. 1. Disgruntled ex-employees are disgrunted. 2. Entry-level positions are entry-level. 3. Sleazy tabloids are sleazy. While I worked there (as an experienced developer, not a fresh-out-of-college content moderator) I was a "real" employee (not contract) and I made a very decent wage, especially considering it's at least nominally a tech startup. (I wouldn't describe it as a tech startup but that's a different story).
- mahmud 16y ago
- whatusername 16y agoI wonder if Ben Huh is nodex? http://www.reddit.com/r/announcements/comments/cnth8/making_ends_meet_tldr_remember_that_joke_about/c0twf3m http://www.reddit.com/r/announcements/comments/cnth8/making_...
- nlogn 16y agonodex posted this in that thread: "I would hate to see it get done the wrong way though and become hyper-commercialized and end up being an ad laden site with only pictures of cats..." Eerily prophetic I fear, if this Ben Huh guy gets his hands on reddit.
- Android 16y agoYeah, he's the absolute worst thing that could possibly happen to the site.
- kunjaan 16y agoAll web entrepreneurs hurry up before the controversy dies. You too can profit from this mess up.
- jacquesm 16y agoPretty cheap, really. If you're serious about an acquisition you first approach the target and if you both agree to go public you go public. Anything else is just a publicity stunt, or at a minimum smells strongly like one.
- bl4k 16y agoam I the only redditor that doesn't want this guy to buy the site? CN may be bad, but this guy isn't exactly the epitome of professionalism (edit: also not sure if the reddit guys will be up for both cheeseburger owners and cheeseburger wages: http://gawker.com/5488509/inside-the-low+paying-cheezburger-empire http://gawker.com/5488509/inside-the-low+paying-cheezburger-...)
- nostromo 16y agoJudging from the quantity of ads on his websites, no.
- madair 16y agoConde Nast isn't all fairies and rainbows. And we are on HN, hangout of cheezeburger wannabes everywhere.
- iamjustlooking 16y agoIt would be interesting to see what changes they would make, that is if any, I'm sure they would though.
- MartinCron 16y agoDisclaimer: I worked at Cheezburger, I know and love Ben. He doesn't appear to the epitome of professionalism, but that's part of his shtick as "the zany lolcat guy". He's actually a remarkable guy in a lot of ways. As arrogant as this may sound, he's one of the few people I've ever known who could take my ideas and reliably make them better. He's said some stupid things on his blog, but that's just a part of life. The gawker article was pure tabloid junk, quoting anonymous sources who were disgruntled ex-employees. Compensation was always at market rates, entry-level positions had entry-level pay, while professional positions had professional pay. He's not perfect, he's young and is still making mistakes (I still think firing me was a big mistake, for example, but I can't really talk about that) but don't discount his professionalism.
- kemayo 16y agoIt is reasonably impressive to find someone who can leave the people he fires talking about how great he is.
- staunch 16y agoHe's probably got it in his mind that CN would be willing to dump it for $3 million or some other low ball number. Reddit was purchased for something like $15 million. I doubt they'd sell it for less than $30 million (if at all). This guy is just tilting at windmills.
- michaelbuckbee 16y agoI'm not sure, CN seems fundamentally unable to figure out how to make Reddit into a profitable venture. It wouldn't be the first startup purchased by a large corporate entity to be sold off for less than the initial purchase price.
- jacquesm 16y agoBut reddit has grown enormously in that time. So the potential has grown as well, the fact that CN can't make it work is not going to stop some other party from trying very hard. What's interesting is that they can't monetize it at this traffic level, even with only four employees.
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- grahamb 16y agoHe also offered to buy my reasonably successful blog for $200. True story.
- jacquesm 16y agoReminds me of the weekly offers I get for ww.com: "I see that you are not using your domain and we were wondering if you would sell it. We can offer you [insert 5 random figures here] and we would like to use escrow.com please reply asap." [delete].
- chopsueyar 16y agoThis is a joke, I assume. Do you use Red5 for ww?
- jacquesm 16y agoNo, they're deadly serious (they think). It's a variation on wowza.
- ido 16y agoFor their benefit i must admit i would have thought ww.com is some parked domain-squatter from a cursory glance if I didn't know better :) The design looks a bit similar to a lot of these types of parked domains.
- jacquesm 16y agoHow so? That homepage has a 1% bouncerate...
- ido 16y agoWhite background, very minimal, just a bunch of text and some links- none of that is bad of course, it's just that my brain has been condition to interpret these cues as a parked domain that I reached because of a typo. Quick examples: http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_61OWU2tC3nY/SbOgGfx01eI/AAAAAAAAAjU/4vCu3vX0HH0/s320/Adsense-parked-domains.png http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_61OWU2tC3nY/SbOgGfx01eI/AAAAAAAAAj... http://blogoscoped.com/files/google-parked-domain-screenshot.png http://blogoscoped.com/files/google-parked-domain-screenshot... http://www.donmak.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2008/07/godaddy-parked-page.jpg http://www.donmak.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2008/07/g... http://www.apogee-web-consulting.com/images/rumcakes-ads.jpg http://www.apogee-web-consulting.com/images/rumcakes-ads.jpg http://gopgle.com/ http://gopgle.com/
- troymc 16y agoPlease don't use CN as shorthand in these comments as it's short for both Conde Nast and Cheezburger Network. - on behalf of the Society for the Elimination of Ambiguity.
- pavs 16y agoCN > CN