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I think it says a lot of bad things about online advertising that a completely voluntary subscription program that gives you essentially nothing beats it as a r

I think it says a lot of bad things about online advertising that a completely voluntary subscription program that gives you essentially nothing beats it as a revenue source. Although that's just a guess, the success of reddit gold might be increase in revenue without having to serve more traffic.

speckledjim 15y ago
It says nothing about online advertising. Reddit is pretty much the worst website to try and advertise to. The community is extremely anti-advertising, anti-capitalism anti-big-companies, etc etc. Coupled with that I don't think the demographic is one that spends big money. They're not shopping for holidays or cars, they're mainly wasting time. Your comment has been upvoted to the top (I believe) because unfortunately that same culture of anti-advertising spills over to HN. Remember. Google made $9bn last quarter, mostly from online advertising. A massive amount of that (about half?) went to 3rd party websites. There's money in this game... All this post says is "Donations are successful for some value of 'success'". If it was really all that successful, I don't think all the employees would have left.
- davidw 15y ago
  What you say about reddit is true, but that doesn't necessarily meant that online advertising works, either. I've never earned more than a pittance from any of the ads on my sites.
  - speckledjim 15y ago
    Then respectfully, you're doing it wrong. There's unfortunately a lot of people who believe all you need to do is slap ads on any website and watch the money come in. It actually takes time, effort, learning, and to some extent skill to know what will work and what won't work. You either need targeted users with intent, or you need more users. Saying you can't make money from online advertising is like a non-programmer saying you can't write a tetris game. They're saying that because they haven't learnt to program yet and so it seems impossible to them. > that doesn't necessarily meant that online advertising works, either. The fact that Google paid out $4bn or whatever last quarter to 3rd party websites surely shows that online advertising works.
    - davidw 15y ago
      Google's something of an outlier in that they make the market for a ton of online ads, though, aren't they? It's evident that it works for some markets and sites, but it just seems to be quite difficult compared to charging money for a product.
- greendestiny 15y ago
  It says a lot about online advertising. Google makes a packet, random websites with ads not so much. I think the alleged counter culture of reddit is massively overstated with respect to their imperviousness to ads. Its just one of those things redditors like to congratulate themselves over.
- Produce 15y ago
  What's so unfortunate about being against advertising? Maybe some of us don't like to have sales pitched without consent.
  - speckledjim 15y ago
    I think for a community devoted to startups, having a particular dislike of online advertising, and a strange "That's not real income" mentality is unfortunate. If you rule out advertising income because you don't like adverts, or because you don't have the skills necessary, then you're missing out on a slice of a gigantic pie. The vast majority of the general population are receptive to advertising and find it useful. I think it's worth remembering that most people in the tech world are absolute outliers. In the real world, most people own and watch a TV. Most people buy newspapers. Most people view and click on adverts. Most people don't own ipads. etc etc edit: You can downmod this all you like. You're the one missing out on the money.
    - cbs 15y ago
      >The vast majority of the general population are receptive to advertising That's terrible justification to do something I consider sleazy just to make a buck. I am a proponent of the idea of voting with my wallet, unfortunately for some reason that concept seems to get whitewashed by people who justify ignoring it by saying its "just business". That mindset is even stronger by people who are not end consumers. >You're the one missing out on the money. I used to be OK running enough ads for my web properties to cover hosting. Then I discovered I had scruples.
      - speckledjim 15y ago
        This is the sort of uneducated attitude I'm talking about. Advertising is not 'sleazy'. It works, and it provides a service to both advertiser, publisher, and consumer. Do you also consider online dating to be sleazy, or job posting sites? Because that's essentially what advertising is - matching a consumer interested in something, to an advertiser who provides something. Without advertising, most consumers would not have a clue what products and services exist. Most manufacturers would have no way to tell people about the service/product they provide. I'm literally amazed at the naivety.
- _delirium 15y ago
  > Remember. Google made $9bn last quarter, mostly from online advertising. A massive amount of that (about half?) went to 3rd party websites. While still large, 3rd-party payout was about 20% of Google's revenue ($1.75b total). Here is the breakdown, from their quarterly report (http://investor.google.com/earnings/2011/Q2_google_earnings.html http://investor.google.com/earnings/2011/Q2_google_earnings....): Total Google revenues: $9.03b Revenues from Google properties: $6.23b Revenues from the AdSense network: $2.48b Google cut of AdSense revenues: $0.73b Payouts to AdSense publishers: $1.75b
- shiftpgdn 15y ago
  I'm going to agree. I've run quite a few ads on Reddit recently and our CTR was absolutely abysmal. One ad campaign had .01% CTR with 0 conversions. On other sites we typically see 1-3% with a decent conversion. I threw a lot of money at Reddit and was REALLY disappointed with the outcome.
  - bane 15y ago
    We've been toying around with advertising on reddit since our product is designed for the reddit userbase...we've been hesitant for exactly that reason...and their advertising seems a bit pricey considering.
- haecib 15y ago
  > The community is extremely anti-advertising, I can't think of a community that is less anti-advertising. If I had a nickel for every time a Redditor has talked about purposely leaving ad-block off on that site... >If it was really all that successful, I don't think all the employees would have left. I believe their payroll is significantly higher than it has ever been. No way to know what individual salaries look like, but it's beyond argument that they have more employees now, and those employees are being paid well enough to stay. I do agree though that this does not speak to online advertising in general. Reddit is a single site, -obviously not enough data points to make broad pronouncements about the health of online advertising (which, incidentally, is a market predicted to be around 34 billion in 2012 in the U.S. alone...).
raldi 15y ago
Keep in mind, reddit didn't even have a single dedicated salesperson assigned to it until September 2010. So it's a little unfair to draw conclusions about its marketability from pre-2011 data. Rather, you should draw conclusions about the strategic vision of the now-departed Conde Nast executives who were responsible for allocating such headcount.
- alnayyir 15y ago
  >now-departed Karma appears to have manifested outside of Reddit.
- greendestiny 15y ago
  Definitely from the outside looking in, you have to scratch your head at the decision for a big company to buy a site for millions have it meet (surely) any user traffic expectations you had and then resource it like a bootstrapped startup. Anyway, not maligning the marketability of reddit. It's just that it makes clear that advertising revenue is a hard way to make money.
  - speckledjim 15y ago
    > It's just that it makes clear that advertising revenue is a hard way to make money. Respectfully, that's a very naive conclusion to draw. You may as well try selling wooly hats and coats in the desert, and conclude that making money selling wooly hats and coats is really hard.
w1ntermute 15y ago
> a completely voluntary subscription program that gives you essentially nothing I wouldn't say that the goodwill Reddit and its community have engendered over the last few years are "nothing". This is just a reminder that intangible goods are just as marketable as tangible ones, and it's not just Apple that can pull it off.
- greendestiny 15y ago
  That's true, I doubt many sites would get as much from 'x' gold. It's still not the kind of revenue plan most people would consider as a better bet than advertising, that's what struck me as interesting.
  - w1ntermute 15y ago
    I think that's something unique to Reddit's demographics. They're willing to donate money (are fairly wealthy), but absolutely hate ads and block them (are tech-savvy).
brandnewlow 15y ago
It's not that surprising. I love Reddit, but it's probably pretty hard to sell legimitate ads on a site that serves hardcore pornography and which is frequented by people who vocally denounce advertising and commercialism in all forms.
- pygy_ 15y ago
  You can get your ads served in selected subreddits. Regarding your second point, you may have to personalize it in order to run a successful campaign on Reddit, but the returns can be good and manifold, especially for a startup. See http://www.gabrielweinberg.com/blog/2010/03/my-duck-duck-go-reddit-ad-by-the-numbers.html http://www.gabrielweinberg.com/blog/2010/03/my-duck-duck-go-... for a detailed report of a Reddit ad campaign.
  - djb_hackernews 15y ago
    And see my detailed report of a reddit ad campaign directed at a specific subreddit. http://impromptudo.tumblr.com/post/3984362470/my-impromptudo-reddit-ad-by-the-numbers http://impromptudo.tumblr.com/post/3984362470/my-impromptudo...
- rmc 15y ago
  Yes, reddit is mostly anti-advertising, but it is not a 'hardcore pornography' site. Vast Majority of people don't go there only to look at porn.
  - pbhjpbhj 15y ago
    >Vast Majority of people don't go there only to look at porn. // So Playboy isn't a porn mag then?
    - rmc 15y ago
      False analyogy. Playboy is a pornography magazine. But reddit is not playboy. Just look at the front page of reddit if you're logged in, no pornography. Create an account, no porn, etc. If reddit is a pornography site, then so is google.
benmccann 15y ago
How do you know it beat advertising as a revenue source? There are no details except that it's been judged successful. It may be simply that it successfully augmented their existing revenue streams.
baddox 15y ago
Have they ever said that subscriptions bring in more revenue that ads? Obviously they're unwilling or unable to give actual numbers, but I have trouble believing that the revenue from subscriptions would be enough to hire a couple of engineers and buy tons of hardware, like the poster hinted.

speckledjim 15y ago

It says nothing about online advertising. Reddit is pretty much the worst website to try and advertise to. The community is extremely anti-advertising, anti-capitalism anti-big-companies, etc etc. Coupled with that I don't think the demographic is one that spends big money. They're not shopping for holidays or cars, they're mainly wasting time. Your comment has been upvoted to the top (I believe) because unfortunately that same culture of anti-advertising spills over to HN. Remember. Google made $9bn last quarter, mostly from online advertising. A massive amount of that (about half?) went to 3rd party websites. There's money in this game... All this post says is "Donations are successful for some value of 'success'". If it was really all that successful, I don't think all the employees would have left.

davidw 15y ago
What you say about reddit is true, but that doesn't necessarily meant that online advertising works, either. I've never earned more than a pittance from any of the ads on my sites.
- speckledjim 15y ago
  Then respectfully, you're doing it wrong. There's unfortunately a lot of people who believe all you need to do is slap ads on any website and watch the money come in. It actually takes time, effort, learning, and to some extent skill to know what will work and what won't work. You either need targeted users with intent, or you need more users. Saying you can't make money from online advertising is like a non-programmer saying you can't write a tetris game. They're saying that because they haven't learnt to program yet and so it seems impossible to them. > that doesn't necessarily meant that online advertising works, either. The fact that Google paid out $4bn or whatever last quarter to 3rd party websites surely shows that online advertising works.
  - davidw 15y ago
    Google's something of an outlier in that they make the market for a ton of online ads, though, aren't they? It's evident that it works for some markets and sites, but it just seems to be quite difficult compared to charging money for a product.
greendestiny 15y ago
It says a lot about online advertising. Google makes a packet, random websites with ads not so much. I think the alleged counter culture of reddit is massively overstated with respect to their imperviousness to ads. Its just one of those things redditors like to congratulate themselves over.
Produce 15y ago
What's so unfortunate about being against advertising? Maybe some of us don't like to have sales pitched without consent.
- speckledjim 15y ago
  I think for a community devoted to startups, having a particular dislike of online advertising, and a strange "That's not real income" mentality is unfortunate. If you rule out advertising income because you don't like adverts, or because you don't have the skills necessary, then you're missing out on a slice of a gigantic pie. The vast majority of the general population are receptive to advertising and find it useful. I think it's worth remembering that most people in the tech world are absolute outliers. In the real world, most people own and watch a TV. Most people buy newspapers. Most people view and click on adverts. Most people don't own ipads. etc etc edit: You can downmod this all you like. You're the one missing out on the money.
  - cbs 15y ago
    >The vast majority of the general population are receptive to advertising That's terrible justification to do something I consider sleazy just to make a buck. I am a proponent of the idea of voting with my wallet, unfortunately for some reason that concept seems to get whitewashed by people who justify ignoring it by saying its "just business". That mindset is even stronger by people who are not end consumers. >You're the one missing out on the money. I used to be OK running enough ads for my web properties to cover hosting. Then I discovered I had scruples.
    - speckledjim 15y ago
      This is the sort of uneducated attitude I'm talking about. Advertising is not 'sleazy'. It works, and it provides a service to both advertiser, publisher, and consumer. Do you also consider online dating to be sleazy, or job posting sites? Because that's essentially what advertising is - matching a consumer interested in something, to an advertiser who provides something. Without advertising, most consumers would not have a clue what products and services exist. Most manufacturers would have no way to tell people about the service/product they provide. I'm literally amazed at the naivety.
_delirium 15y ago
> Remember. Google made $9bn last quarter, mostly from online advertising. A massive amount of that (about half?) went to 3rd party websites. While still large, 3rd-party payout was about 20% of Google's revenue ($1.75b total). Here is the breakdown, from their quarterly report (http://investor.google.com/earnings/2011/Q2_google_earnings.html http://investor.google.com/earnings/2011/Q2_google_earnings....): Total Google revenues: $9.03b Revenues from Google properties: $6.23b Revenues from the AdSense network: $2.48b Google cut of AdSense revenues: $0.73b Payouts to AdSense publishers: $1.75b
shiftpgdn 15y ago
I'm going to agree. I've run quite a few ads on Reddit recently and our CTR was absolutely abysmal. One ad campaign had .01% CTR with 0 conversions. On other sites we typically see 1-3% with a decent conversion. I threw a lot of money at Reddit and was REALLY disappointed with the outcome.
- bane 15y ago
  We've been toying around with advertising on reddit since our product is designed for the reddit userbase...we've been hesitant for exactly that reason...and their advertising seems a bit pricey considering.
haecib 15y ago
> The community is extremely anti-advertising, I can't think of a community that is less anti-advertising. If I had a nickel for every time a Redditor has talked about purposely leaving ad-block off on that site... >If it was really all that successful, I don't think all the employees would have left. I believe their payroll is significantly higher than it has ever been. No way to know what individual salaries look like, but it's beyond argument that they have more employees now, and those employees are being paid well enough to stay. I do agree though that this does not speak to online advertising in general. Reddit is a single site, -obviously not enough data points to make broad pronouncements about the health of online advertising (which, incidentally, is a market predicted to be around 34 billion in 2012 in the U.S. alone...).

raldi 15y ago

Keep in mind, reddit didn't even have a single dedicated salesperson assigned to it until September 2010. So it's a little unfair to draw conclusions about its marketability from pre-2011 data. Rather, you should draw conclusions about the strategic vision of the now-departed Conde Nast executives who were responsible for allocating such headcount.

alnayyir 15y ago
>now-departed Karma appears to have manifested outside of Reddit.
greendestiny 15y ago
Definitely from the outside looking in, you have to scratch your head at the decision for a big company to buy a site for millions have it meet (surely) any user traffic expectations you had and then resource it like a bootstrapped startup. Anyway, not maligning the marketability of reddit. It's just that it makes clear that advertising revenue is a hard way to make money.
- speckledjim 15y ago
  > It's just that it makes clear that advertising revenue is a hard way to make money. Respectfully, that's a very naive conclusion to draw. You may as well try selling wooly hats and coats in the desert, and conclude that making money selling wooly hats and coats is really hard.

w1ntermute 15y ago

> a completely voluntary subscription program that gives you essentially nothing I wouldn't say that the goodwill Reddit and its community have engendered over the last few years are "nothing". This is just a reminder that intangible goods are just as marketable as tangible ones, and it's not just Apple that can pull it off.

greendestiny 15y ago
That's true, I doubt many sites would get as much from 'x' gold. It's still not the kind of revenue plan most people would consider as a better bet than advertising, that's what struck me as interesting.
- w1ntermute 15y ago
  I think that's something unique to Reddit's demographics. They're willing to donate money (are fairly wealthy), but absolutely hate ads and block them (are tech-savvy).

brandnewlow 15y ago

It's not that surprising. I love Reddit, but it's probably pretty hard to sell legimitate ads on a site that serves hardcore pornography and which is frequented by people who vocally denounce advertising and commercialism in all forms.

pygy_ 15y ago
You can get your ads served in selected subreddits. Regarding your second point, you may have to personalize it in order to run a successful campaign on Reddit, but the returns can be good and manifold, especially for a startup. See http://www.gabrielweinberg.com/blog/2010/03/my-duck-duck-go-reddit-ad-by-the-numbers.html http://www.gabrielweinberg.com/blog/2010/03/my-duck-duck-go-... for a detailed report of a Reddit ad campaign.
- djb_hackernews 15y ago
  And see my detailed report of a reddit ad campaign directed at a specific subreddit. http://impromptudo.tumblr.com/post/3984362470/my-impromptudo-reddit-ad-by-the-numbers http://impromptudo.tumblr.com/post/3984362470/my-impromptudo...
rmc 15y ago
Yes, reddit is mostly anti-advertising, but it is not a 'hardcore pornography' site. Vast Majority of people don't go there only to look at porn.
- pbhjpbhj 15y ago
  >Vast Majority of people don't go there only to look at porn. // So Playboy isn't a porn mag then?
  - rmc 15y ago
    False analyogy. Playboy is a pornography magazine. But reddit is not playboy. Just look at the front page of reddit if you're logged in, no pornography. Create an account, no porn, etc. If reddit is a pornography site, then so is google.

benmccann 15y ago

How do you know it beat advertising as a revenue source? There are no details except that it's been judged successful. It may be simply that it successfully augmented their existing revenue streams.

baddox 15y ago

Have they ever said that subscriptions bring in more revenue that ads? Obviously they're unwilling or unable to give actual numbers, but I have trouble believing that the revenue from subscriptions would be enough to hire a couple of engineers and buy tons of hardware, like the poster hinted.