13 ms·

Reddit Traffic has Exploded in 12 Months

132 points by vaf 15y ago

zmmmmm 15y ago
For me the standout feature of reddit is the ease of commenting and browsing comments. Being able to reply, edit and even delete your comment inline without leaving the thread probably raised my level of contribution more than an order of magnitude. I don't understand why more sites (HN, hint hint?) don't make commenting this easy.
narkee 15y ago
>It’s not guaranteed that something of high quality will make it on Reddit, but it’s absolutely guaranteed that something of low quality will be destroyed there. That's not true at all. There are tons of low quality posts. There's just such a high turnover that you tend to forget some of the stuff that you automatically skip or filter.
- absconditus 15y ago
  Most of the submissions on the default front page are atrocious.
parfe 15y ago
Too bad. The voting system isn't as robust as it needs to be for me to use the site on a regular basis anymore. Too many of the top rated threads are jokes, puns, or stupid questions. Moderating by category made slashdot comments useful. In the user profile, setting all "Funny" moderated comments to -5 eliminated all the "In Soviet Russia" jokes. Repeated comments were marked redundant etc. Reddit has become quite popular and as a result the comments have become less interesting and more populist. While it's great for the staff to run a successful site, the newfound popularity has pushed me away, and just as they released the Gold accounts as well. I'd pay for a gold account if it gave access to an advanced moderation system. News.yc is still small enough and the community homogeneous enough that the really stupid shit gets moderated out. People are strict enough around here that the idiots leave quickly. Not having sub-sites helps as well to push away the people primarily looking for lolcats.
- blhack 15y ago
  Reddit still has a fantastic set of communities on it. Think of it more as a service, not one singular website. Like usenet. (These are some of the subs that I like, they might not be your thing, but they're examples of solid communities) http://reddit.com/r/truereddit http://reddit.com/r/truereddit http://reddit.com/r/longtext http://reddit.com/r/longtext http://reddit.com/r/depthhub http://reddit.com/r/depthhub http://reddit.com/r/askscience http://reddit.com/r/askscience http://reddit.com/r/neuro http://reddit.com/r/neuro http://reddit.com/r/burningman http://reddit.com/r/burningman http://reddit.com/r/movies http://reddit.com/r/movies http://reddit.com/r/linguistics http://reddit.com/r/linguistics http://reddit.com/r/philosophy http://reddit.com/r/philosophy And if you're looking for pictures, there are the "SFW \"Porn\"" subs: http://www.reddit.com/r/earthporn+villageporn+cityporn+spaceporn+waterporn+animalporn+humanporn+botanicalporn+adrenalineporn+destructionporn+movieposterporn+albumartporn+machineporn+newsporn+geekporn+bookporn+mapporn+adporn http://www.reddit.com/r/earthporn+villageporn+cityporn+space... Reddit certainly isn't dead. It's just maturing.
  - parfe 15y ago
    I understand that I can work to find subcommunities that havne't been destroyed yet, but check out The top rated comment in the top rated post in /r/Programming: http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/juzl0/what_does_1265_of_bugs_look_like/ http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/juzl0/what_does... Extremely disappointmented this wasn't a picture of a dump truck full of bees.
    - fudged71 15y ago
      It's no secret that the Programming subreddit has gone downhill in the past couple years. Plus, when a post gets popular, it gains the attention of the general audience, who often view /r/all. Another good subreddit is /r/todayilearned
      - masklinn 15y ago
        > it gains the attention of the general audience, who often view /r/all. It's not that they view /r/all, it's that they have not customized their front page, so they get the default set of subreddits, which I believe is simply the subreddits with the most members.
michaelpinto 15y ago
To me this sums up what Reddit really got right: "The community is the most passionate out there." Towards the end of his time with Digg Kevin Rose seemed to have little empathy for his audience, and the audience knew it when he checked out of the building and handed things over to Jay. The redesign was more about having a solid code base than rolling out new features for the users. And one got the sense that while they had Twitter envy that Reddit was doubling down on making their community (with all of their quirks) feel at home.
- count 15y ago
  Actually, I think you've stumbled onto a more important point here. Digg was primarily oriented around Kevin Rose and his 'posse'. Digg started bombing when Kevin bailed. Reddit was never about Steve or Alexis, it always seemed to be about the community itself. So, when Steve, Alexis, Jeremy, Mike, and everybody else who'd been there forever 'left', there was nothing to implode - the community was still there and still thriving. Does Kevin Rose even USE digg anymore? I know most of the original crew still uses Reddit, but just as users, like the rest of us poor slobs.
  - michaelpinto 15y ago
    You're dead on -- Reddit was always about the users, never the founders. Not only did Rose stop using the site when he went away, but he seemed pleased to distance himself when he left. Sadly the new CEO seems to care, but many does he have his work cut out for him.
dmix 15y ago
The day I realized reddit wasn't the same anymore, was when I made a jest about Youtube commenters only posting unintelligible comments in the main /r/reddit.com subreddit. I got tons downvotes and a confused reply saying "is there something wrong with youtube that I dont get?" Then I realized the people commenting on Reddit were the same ones posting the comments on Youtube. They weren't even aware of the stigma of Youtubes comments, which shows the cultural shift on Reddit from tech-savvy to mainstream.
- drivebyacct2 15y ago
  I'd be very interested to see this comment thread. I've never, ever seen anyone defend YouTube, let alone YouTube style comments. Further, if you're in an at-all-trafficked subreddit, poor spelling, poor grammar and outright rudeness is fairly well discouraged.
  - bane 15y ago
    perhaps this is it? http://www.reddit.com/r/reddit.com/comments/jcv2h/rolling_stone_magazines_response_to_music/c2b44nd http://www.reddit.com/r/reddit.com/comments/jcv2h/rolling_st...
    - dmix 15y ago
      Indeed, this comment in particular was the top reply that had 12+ upvoted before later being downvoted. "Are you trying to be clever, are you a dumb ass or something else? Is this some funny youtube shit that is above my understanding?" The exaggerated lack of intelligence in my original comment was really obvious. The fact that people didn't get the joke was what was concerning.
      - deleted 15y ago
        [deleted]
      - mkr-hn 15y ago
        I might be missing something, but it looks like you missed the parent commenter's joke.
drivebyacct2 15y ago
Only posted an hour and already the same, predictable comments. People, please take the time to explore other subreddits. If you stay subscribed to reddit.com, pics, politics and other various default subreddits, you're not going to enjoy yourself (unless you liked digg v4). Also, I have no idea why reddit defaults to "top" for comment sorting. The experience is much less gimmicky when you sort comments by "best". They're usually more relevant and less meta/jokey. (edit, I appear to have been mistaken on this, I was just sure when I created a new account a while back it had defaulted to 'top'. Oh well, something to keep in mind anyhow.)
- jedberg 15y ago
  The default is best, but if you've ever sorted by "top", it will remain "top" until you change it back. It's a long standing bug. :)
  - raldi 15y ago
    Actually, one of the new guys fixed that. Hooray for progress!
    - jedberg 15y ago
      Oh yeah! It was in the changelog. I forgot, since I'm no longer responsible for memorizing the changelog. ;)
  - esrauch 15y ago
    Sounds like a long standing feature to me; sticky settings. Anyone who prefers setting X over the default shouldn't be forced to change it every time they view a page.
    - jedberg 15y ago
      The bug was that a GET request was causing an update, which shouldn't happen because then you end up updating your settings just by clicking on a link, usually inadvertently.
nowarninglabel 15y ago
Mandatory: http://blog.reddit.com/2010/07/experts-misunderestimate-our-traffic.html http://blog.reddit.com/2010/07/experts-misunderestimate-our-... Also, same title could have been posted in 2010 and 2009, which also saw explosion in growth year-over-year.
diminish 15y ago
slashdot, digg, reddit, hackernews; i am curious where will I be next year;
- JLW 15y ago
  with the consistency of users i might get working!!! ha
ubershmekel 15y ago
That floating share button really obscured the main article text on my android. How about a close button for that annoying little thing?
raldi 15y ago
Speaking as a former reddit admin who had direct access to the server logs (and "wc -l"): Quantcast (and Alexa, and Comscore, and all the others) are terrible at estimating traffic. They make wildly inaccurate guesses using low-quality source data and all the ad execs just gobble up their results as if they're fresh off God's own LaserJet. It's very frustrating to watch. The most accurate results are visible at Google AdPlanner, because it's reporting actual Google Analytics data from a bug embedded on every reddit page: https://www.google.com/adplanner/planning/site_profile?hl=en#siteDetails?identifier=reddit.com&lp=true https://www.google.com/adplanner/planning/site_profile?hl=en... Google Trends is also pretty good -- again, because they have access to actual, real search data which they're presenting raw and unvarnished: http://www.google.com/trends?q=reddit%2C+digg&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all&sort=0 http://www.google.com/trends?q=reddit%2C+digg&ctab=0&#38... To my eye, the hockey stick begins in Q1 2010, well before the mid-Q3 spike when Digg v4 was launched. TLDR: Digg's implosion may have accelerated Reddit's traffic growth, but it was already doubling yearly, a trend which goes back to the site's launch in 2005.
- jedberg 15y ago
  And in case it helps, I was about to write the exact same comment. They are using Alexa numbers which are, basically, unsubstantiated guesses. Heck, they didn't even bother to read the numbers reddit actually publishes.
- tomerico 15y ago
  Thanks for this site, I never knew Google publish analytic traffic and their estimated traffic. Something interesting I have noticed, if you are looking at Hacker News' traffic data, there seems to be a steep decline somewhere around April [1]. I wonder what whether it is correct, and whether there was a fundamental change in this site / ycombinator around that time. [1] https://www.google.com/adplanner/planning/site_profile?hl=en#siteDetails?uid=d%252Bnews.ycombinator.com&geo=001&lp=false https://www.google.com/adplanner/planning/site_profile?hl=en...
  - sc00ter 15y ago
    (Sarcasm noted :-) For the uninitiated, this was around the time comment scores were hidden. Only PG knows whether this had any real effect on traffic; and even if so, whether that's a good or bad thing is subjective (less poor quality traffic / comments is good, and since HN is not directly commercial, lower traffic is not necessarily a bad thing). Loss of value to everyone else from lack of comment scores is another question entirely...
dasil003 15y ago
The crazy thing is how Reddit dominated Digg at the v4 launch. What the hell happened there? Did the Reddit community mobilize 4chan-style? The article teases us this sentence: Please forgive the long screenshot below, but it’s important to understand exactly how Reddit blasted the Digg front page at this time This suggests that they have something deeper to reveal, but instead it's just a screenshot showing the actual posts on the front page—how much rather than how.
- wvenable 15y ago
  It wasn't the reddit community but rather the Digg community protesting the changes to the site and using reddit links to make the point.
- ZachPruckowski 15y ago
  Many of the users on Digg considered V4 to be about monetizing the site at the expense of a lot of features they really liked.
- jedberg 15y ago
  reddit was actually already bigger than Digg before they launched V4. There was a lot of overlap of users and people were pissed off, so they thought it would be funny.
- drivebyacct2 15y ago
  Though it was apparent in v3, v4 made it impossible to notice that 90+% of digg's content was 12-24 hour lagged reddit content. As this became more obvious and v4 became more mockable, this point was emphasized and mocked by reddit and digg users alike. There was cross promotion, but I don't think many redditors were "seeking out" or trying to "recruit" digg users.
csomar 15y ago
In the snapshot he put, the stories has lots of diggs, but surprisingly few views. The first story has for example 5733 dig and only 1015 views. This is not normal, and suggests that something is going on.
zitterbewegung 15y ago
Anyone feel lost in the high amount of traffic? I have been a redditor for 5 years and I feel not only has the traffic grown considerably but the content submitted has changed so much. The tone of the site has changed enough that I only subscribe to usually low user count subreddits.
- SkyMarshal 15y ago
  I've been subscribed to only non-default subreddits for so long I didn't even notice the traffic growth, except for the occasional fail-whale. The niche parts of the site are still good.
  - Florin_Andrei 15y ago
    So which subreddits do you find interesting? I tend to browse the fringe parts, too, but even there there's an increase in noise, low-brow comments, and narrow-minded fundamentalism.
    - gwern 15y ago
      For me, the valuable subreddits are the Touhou, Vocaloid, Haskell, and philosophy of science subreddits.
  - zitterbewegung 15y ago
    I'm not giving a value judgement I'm saying the site has changed so much in candor.
ck2 15y ago
If I ever wrote a list of top 10 times an internet "product" handed a competitor most of it's "customers", two that would be on there include MovableType v3 (went free to paid and caused WordPress 2.0 to actually gain attention) and Digg v4.
dpcan 15y ago
I have just ONE thing to say: Do not change anything Reddit. Seriously, it's working, it's great to have, and I would be completely bummed if they pulled their own "Digg v4" at broke a perfectly working system. Sure, infrastructure can get better, or maybe small improvements as you see happen on HN like with voting, points, etc, but otherwise, just let it ride.
- jedberg 15y ago
  > or maybe small improvements as you see happen on HN like with voting, points, etc, Hey, that reminds me. I use HN every day, but I still don't have an handle on when the arrows appear and don't and when I can edit and can't. Is there some page somewhere that actually outlines the rules, or do I have to read the code?
  - thaumaturgy 15y ago
    You have to read the code. What do you think this is, Reddit? ;-) (with tongue firmly in cheek, etc. etc.)
  - kbd 15y ago
    I keep waiting to get the ability to downvote. Every 50 karma I get I think, "maybe I can downvote now", but it never happens.
    - raldi 15y ago
      >= 251, last time I checked.
      - Macha 15y ago
        500 actually. I got it a little while ago. That's comments only.
        count 15y ago
        Other fun comes at >1000.
tokenadult 15y ago
I searched this thread to see if monetization has been mentioned. I see that it has been. Monetization was mentioned as a reason that Digg failed. What way does Reddit have to make money? Does it make any difference to Reddit, if Reddit has no way to make money, how much traffic Reddit has?
- raldi 15y ago
  Reddit has many revenue streams. In no particular order: sidebar ads, sponsored links, reddit gold (a for-pay set of premium features), sponsorships, merchandise...
  - bostonvaulter2 15y ago
    I think Reddit could do much better with selling their merchandise, maybe by selling things directly. I don't think I was really aware of the reddit store, it's not very prominent and I don't remember many blog posts about it. http://store.reddit.com/index.html http://store.reddit.com/index.html
    - raldi 15y ago
      Do you use AdBlock?
maurits 15y ago
I deleted my account yesterday. As a community it has given me nothing back, except pictures of funny cats (ok slight exaggeration) It seems as if every single comment that hints to insight fulness, knowledge or that comes accompanied with a (scientific) source is ridiculed or downvoted into oblivion. And top comments increasingly are inside jokes. That is all ok, but I am not putting energy in it anymore. Compare that to HN, where I comment very little, yet nearly every interaction sparked an email or two with people who do cool stuff. Reddit commenters seems to take some pride that they are not as worse as their cousins at 4chan or youtube. To me they seem to be the internet white noise, and if they don't deviate into the tail, they will be fine. The usenet comparison by blhack is spot on I feel, so new communities will spring to live where others slip. edit:typo
- ohashi 15y ago
  If you got no value out of the place, I think you were doing it wrong. My city (DC) has a thriving subreddit that meets up probably 2-3 times a week officially to do things - zombie invasion simulations, drinking, board games, go karting, etc. It's been a fantastic way to just get out and do stuff with people. There is a whole subreddit dedicated to 'Barcraft' which brings watching pro starcraft live to bars (like you would watch any other sport). People are spending their time to put on these live events with help from companies like Justin.tv/Twitch. Those are two examples that hit home close to me, but I am sure you can find stuff for you as well, you just have to look and engage with the proper communities.
  - maurits 15y ago
    You gave me a new idea. I have two hobbies, one is a niche, and its subredit is dead in the water. The other is so broad its subredit suffers a bit from the fun&games comments. Which brings me to this. HN is a pretty nice community. What would happen if we make it a subredit, /r/hn? Its a pretty cool place with a group of growing, devoted followers. All is good. So one day, it gets promoted to the default frontpage. How long before the lol cats outnumber the hackers?
    - 15y ago
oldstrangers 15y ago
I wonder why no one talks about the huge growth for imgur, which has more traffic than reddit... https://www.google.com/adplanner/planning/site_profile?hl=en#siteDetails?identifier=imgur.com&lp=true https://www.google.com/adplanner/planning/site_profile?hl=en... https://www.google.com/adplanner/planning/site_profile?hl=en#siteDetails?identifier=reddit.com&lp=true https://www.google.com/adplanner/planning/site_profile?hl=en...
- walla 15y ago
  The guy who made the site is a Redditor. People where complaining about not having a good image host so he made one. I think that site generates a lot of income for him.
paganel 15y ago
Unfortunately, reddit has started to hit new and new lows. See this recent highly-voted post for example (http://www.reddit.com/r/funny/comments/jvhot/i_found_a_girl_on_flickr_who_has_169_images_of/ http://www.reddit.com/r/funny/comments/jvhot/i_found_a_girl_...), where they're making fun of a poor girl's badly photoshopped photos that she dared to publish on Flickr. I've been on reddit since its very beginnings, back when its being rewritten in Python was causing huge discussions or when programming.reddit was still a sub-domain. I've lived through the 2008 elections stealing the front page from geeky-related articles, or when making fun at digg was actually considered cool (back in 2009 or so). Anyway, I never thought that making fun and hurting actual innocent people would really hit the front-page, I'm ashamed of having supported this website for so long. There are still some pockets of common-sense left, starting with TrueReddit which I think is more like an animal preserve for those who can still remember how cool and exciting reddit used to be. I'll also want to add /r/history to the list of sub-reddits worth following.
- georgieporgie 15y ago
  TrueReddit Wow, thanks for that! It's like Reddit, but without all the memes, manipulators, and obvious spammers trying to pump up their karma with reposts. That's the first time in years that I've felt that I gained something in exchange for my time.
  - whacker 15y ago
    Unsubscribe from all the default frontpage reddits: reddit.com politics pics gaming videos f7u12 askreddit etc. and suddenly reddit looks much more civilized. The remaining reddits are mostly free of overt spamming and manipulation. checkout /r/depthhub for real good stuff.
  - bostonvaulter2 15y ago
    I'd also highly recommend r/depthhub http://www.reddit.com/r/depthhub http://www.reddit.com/r/depthhub Other more niche ones are good as well.
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
wozza 15y ago
The most likely answers are, “Yes, yes, and yes.” How did he figure that out?

132 points by vaf 15y ago

For me the standout feature of reddit is the ease of commenting and browsing comments. Being able to reply, edit and even delete your comment inline without leaving the thread probably raised my level of contribution more than an order of magnitude. I don't understand why more sites (HN, hint hint?) don't make commenting this easy.

narkee 15y ago

>It’s not guaranteed that something of high quality will make it on Reddit, but it’s absolutely guaranteed that something of low quality will be destroyed there. That's not true at all. There are tons of low quality posts. There's just such a high turnover that you tend to forget some of the stuff that you automatically skip or filter.

absconditus 15y ago
Most of the submissions on the default front page are atrocious.

parfe 15y ago

Too bad. The voting system isn't as robust as it needs to be for me to use the site on a regular basis anymore. Too many of the top rated threads are jokes, puns, or stupid questions. Moderating by category made slashdot comments useful. In the user profile, setting all "Funny" moderated comments to -5 eliminated all the "In Soviet Russia" jokes. Repeated comments were marked redundant etc. Reddit has become quite popular and as a result the comments have become less interesting and more populist. While it's great for the staff to run a successful site, the newfound popularity has pushed me away, and just as they released the Gold accounts as well. I'd pay for a gold account if it gave access to an advanced moderation system. News.yc is still small enough and the community homogeneous enough that the really stupid shit gets moderated out. People are strict enough around here that the idiots leave quickly. Not having sub-sites helps as well to push away the people primarily looking for lolcats.

blhack 15y ago
Reddit still has a fantastic set of communities on it. Think of it more as a service, not one singular website. Like usenet. (These are some of the subs that I like, they might not be your thing, but they're examples of solid communities) http://reddit.com/r/truereddit http://reddit.com/r/truereddit http://reddit.com/r/longtext http://reddit.com/r/longtext http://reddit.com/r/depthhub http://reddit.com/r/depthhub http://reddit.com/r/askscience http://reddit.com/r/askscience http://reddit.com/r/neuro http://reddit.com/r/neuro http://reddit.com/r/burningman http://reddit.com/r/burningman http://reddit.com/r/movies http://reddit.com/r/movies http://reddit.com/r/linguistics http://reddit.com/r/linguistics http://reddit.com/r/philosophy http://reddit.com/r/philosophy And if you're looking for pictures, there are the "SFW \"Porn\"" subs: http://www.reddit.com/r/earthporn+villageporn+cityporn+spaceporn+waterporn+animalporn+humanporn+botanicalporn+adrenalineporn+destructionporn+movieposterporn+albumartporn+machineporn+newsporn+geekporn+bookporn+mapporn+adporn http://www.reddit.com/r/earthporn+villageporn+cityporn+space... Reddit certainly isn't dead. It's just maturing.
- parfe 15y ago
  I understand that I can work to find subcommunities that havne't been destroyed yet, but check out The top rated comment in the top rated post in /r/Programming: http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/juzl0/what_does_1265_of_bugs_look_like/ http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/juzl0/what_does... Extremely disappointmented this wasn't a picture of a dump truck full of bees.
  - fudged71 15y ago
    It's no secret that the Programming subreddit has gone downhill in the past couple years. Plus, when a post gets popular, it gains the attention of the general audience, who often view /r/all. Another good subreddit is /r/todayilearned
    - masklinn 15y ago
      > it gains the attention of the general audience, who often view /r/all. It's not that they view /r/all, it's that they have not customized their front page, so they get the default set of subreddits, which I believe is simply the subreddits with the most members.

michaelpinto 15y ago

To me this sums up what Reddit really got right: "The community is the most passionate out there." Towards the end of his time with Digg Kevin Rose seemed to have little empathy for his audience, and the audience knew it when he checked out of the building and handed things over to Jay. The redesign was more about having a solid code base than rolling out new features for the users. And one got the sense that while they had Twitter envy that Reddit was doubling down on making their community (with all of their quirks) feel at home.

count 15y ago
Actually, I think you've stumbled onto a more important point here. Digg was primarily oriented around Kevin Rose and his 'posse'. Digg started bombing when Kevin bailed. Reddit was never about Steve or Alexis, it always seemed to be about the community itself. So, when Steve, Alexis, Jeremy, Mike, and everybody else who'd been there forever 'left', there was nothing to implode - the community was still there and still thriving. Does Kevin Rose even USE digg anymore? I know most of the original crew still uses Reddit, but just as users, like the rest of us poor slobs.
- michaelpinto 15y ago
  You're dead on -- Reddit was always about the users, never the founders. Not only did Rose stop using the site when he went away, but he seemed pleased to distance himself when he left. Sadly the new CEO seems to care, but many does he have his work cut out for him.

dmix 15y ago

The day I realized reddit wasn't the same anymore, was when I made a jest about Youtube commenters only posting unintelligible comments in the main /r/reddit.com subreddit. I got tons downvotes and a confused reply saying "is there something wrong with youtube that I dont get?" Then I realized the people commenting on Reddit were the same ones posting the comments on Youtube. They weren't even aware of the stigma of Youtubes comments, which shows the cultural shift on Reddit from tech-savvy to mainstream.

drivebyacct2 15y ago
I'd be very interested to see this comment thread. I've never, ever seen anyone defend YouTube, let alone YouTube style comments. Further, if you're in an at-all-trafficked subreddit, poor spelling, poor grammar and outright rudeness is fairly well discouraged.
- bane 15y ago
  perhaps this is it? http://www.reddit.com/r/reddit.com/comments/jcv2h/rolling_stone_magazines_response_to_music/c2b44nd http://www.reddit.com/r/reddit.com/comments/jcv2h/rolling_st...
  - dmix 15y ago
    Indeed, this comment in particular was the top reply that had 12+ upvoted before later being downvoted. "Are you trying to be clever, are you a dumb ass or something else? Is this some funny youtube shit that is above my understanding?" The exaggerated lack of intelligence in my original comment was really obvious. The fact that people didn't get the joke was what was concerning.
    - deleted 15y ago
      [deleted]
    - mkr-hn 15y ago
      I might be missing something, but it looks like you missed the parent commenter's joke.

drivebyacct2 15y ago

Only posted an hour and already the same, predictable comments. People, please take the time to explore other subreddits. If you stay subscribed to reddit.com, pics, politics and other various default subreddits, you're not going to enjoy yourself (unless you liked digg v4). Also, I have no idea why reddit defaults to "top" for comment sorting. The experience is much less gimmicky when you sort comments by "best". They're usually more relevant and less meta/jokey. (edit, I appear to have been mistaken on this, I was just sure when I created a new account a while back it had defaulted to 'top'. Oh well, something to keep in mind anyhow.)

jedberg 15y ago
The default is best, but if you've ever sorted by "top", it will remain "top" until you change it back. It's a long standing bug. :)
- raldi 15y ago
  Actually, one of the new guys fixed that. Hooray for progress!
  - jedberg 15y ago
    Oh yeah! It was in the changelog. I forgot, since I'm no longer responsible for memorizing the changelog. ;)
- esrauch 15y ago
  Sounds like a long standing feature to me; sticky settings. Anyone who prefers setting X over the default shouldn't be forced to change it every time they view a page.
  - jedberg 15y ago
    The bug was that a GET request was causing an update, which shouldn't happen because then you end up updating your settings just by clicking on a link, usually inadvertently.

nowarninglabel 15y ago

Mandatory: http://blog.reddit.com/2010/07/experts-misunderestimate-our-traffic.html http://blog.reddit.com/2010/07/experts-misunderestimate-our-... Also, same title could have been posted in 2010 and 2009, which also saw explosion in growth year-over-year.

diminish 15y ago

slashdot, digg, reddit, hackernews; i am curious where will I be next year;

JLW 15y ago
with the consistency of users i might get working!!! ha

ubershmekel 15y ago

That floating share button really obscured the main article text on my android. How about a close button for that annoying little thing?

raldi 15y ago

Speaking as a former reddit admin who had direct access to the server logs (and "wc -l"): Quantcast (and Alexa, and Comscore, and all the others) are terrible at estimating traffic. They make wildly inaccurate guesses using low-quality source data and all the ad execs just gobble up their results as if they're fresh off God's own LaserJet. It's very frustrating to watch. The most accurate results are visible at Google AdPlanner, because it's reporting actual Google Analytics data from a bug embedded on every reddit page: https://www.google.com/adplanner/planning/site_profile?hl=en#siteDetails?identifier=reddit.com&lp=true https://www.google.com/adplanner/planning/site_profile?hl=en... Google Trends is also pretty good -- again, because they have access to actual, real search data which they're presenting raw and unvarnished: http://www.google.com/trends?q=reddit%2C+digg&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all&sort=0 http://www.google.com/trends?q=reddit%2C+digg&ctab=0&#38... To my eye, the hockey stick begins in Q1 2010, well before the mid-Q3 spike when Digg v4 was launched. TLDR: Digg's implosion may have accelerated Reddit's traffic growth, but it was already doubling yearly, a trend which goes back to the site's launch in 2005.

jedberg 15y ago
And in case it helps, I was about to write the exact same comment. They are using Alexa numbers which are, basically, unsubstantiated guesses. Heck, they didn't even bother to read the numbers reddit actually publishes.
tomerico 15y ago
Thanks for this site, I never knew Google publish analytic traffic and their estimated traffic. Something interesting I have noticed, if you are looking at Hacker News' traffic data, there seems to be a steep decline somewhere around April [1]. I wonder what whether it is correct, and whether there was a fundamental change in this site / ycombinator around that time. [1] https://www.google.com/adplanner/planning/site_profile?hl=en#siteDetails?uid=d%252Bnews.ycombinator.com&geo=001&lp=false https://www.google.com/adplanner/planning/site_profile?hl=en...
- sc00ter 15y ago
  (Sarcasm noted :-) For the uninitiated, this was around the time comment scores were hidden. Only PG knows whether this had any real effect on traffic; and even if so, whether that's a good or bad thing is subjective (less poor quality traffic / comments is good, and since HN is not directly commercial, lower traffic is not necessarily a bad thing). Loss of value to everyone else from lack of comment scores is another question entirely...

dasil003 15y ago

The crazy thing is how Reddit dominated Digg at the v4 launch. What the hell happened there? Did the Reddit community mobilize 4chan-style? The article teases us this sentence: Please forgive the long screenshot below, but it’s important to understand exactly how Reddit blasted the Digg front page at this time This suggests that they have something deeper to reveal, but instead it's just a screenshot showing the actual posts on the front page—how much rather than how.

wvenable 15y ago
It wasn't the reddit community but rather the Digg community protesting the changes to the site and using reddit links to make the point.
ZachPruckowski 15y ago
Many of the users on Digg considered V4 to be about monetizing the site at the expense of a lot of features they really liked.
jedberg 15y ago
reddit was actually already bigger than Digg before they launched V4. There was a lot of overlap of users and people were pissed off, so they thought it would be funny.
drivebyacct2 15y ago
Though it was apparent in v3, v4 made it impossible to notice that 90+% of digg's content was 12-24 hour lagged reddit content. As this became more obvious and v4 became more mockable, this point was emphasized and mocked by reddit and digg users alike. There was cross promotion, but I don't think many redditors were "seeking out" or trying to "recruit" digg users.

csomar 15y ago

In the snapshot he put, the stories has lots of diggs, but surprisingly few views. The first story has for example 5733 dig and only 1015 views. This is not normal, and suggests that something is going on.

zitterbewegung 15y ago

Anyone feel lost in the high amount of traffic? I have been a redditor for 5 years and I feel not only has the traffic grown considerably but the content submitted has changed so much. The tone of the site has changed enough that I only subscribe to usually low user count subreddits.

SkyMarshal 15y ago
I've been subscribed to only non-default subreddits for so long I didn't even notice the traffic growth, except for the occasional fail-whale. The niche parts of the site are still good.
- Florin_Andrei 15y ago
  So which subreddits do you find interesting? I tend to browse the fringe parts, too, but even there there's an increase in noise, low-brow comments, and narrow-minded fundamentalism.
  - gwern 15y ago
    For me, the valuable subreddits are the Touhou, Vocaloid, Haskell, and philosophy of science subreddits.
- zitterbewegung 15y ago
  I'm not giving a value judgement I'm saying the site has changed so much in candor.

ck2 15y ago

If I ever wrote a list of top 10 times an internet "product" handed a competitor most of it's "customers", two that would be on there include MovableType v3 (went free to paid and caused WordPress 2.0 to actually gain attention) and Digg v4.

dpcan 15y ago

I have just ONE thing to say: Do not change anything Reddit. Seriously, it's working, it's great to have, and I would be completely bummed if they pulled their own "Digg v4" at broke a perfectly working system. Sure, infrastructure can get better, or maybe small improvements as you see happen on HN like with voting, points, etc, but otherwise, just let it ride.

jedberg 15y ago
> or maybe small improvements as you see happen on HN like with voting, points, etc, Hey, that reminds me. I use HN every day, but I still don't have an handle on when the arrows appear and don't and when I can edit and can't. Is there some page somewhere that actually outlines the rules, or do I have to read the code?
- thaumaturgy 15y ago
  You have to read the code. What do you think this is, Reddit? ;-) (with tongue firmly in cheek, etc. etc.)
- kbd 15y ago
  I keep waiting to get the ability to downvote. Every 50 karma I get I think, "maybe I can downvote now", but it never happens.
  - raldi 15y ago
    >= 251, last time I checked.
    - Macha 15y ago
      500 actually. I got it a little while ago. That's comments only.
      - count 15y ago
        Other fun comes at >1000.

tokenadult 15y ago

I searched this thread to see if monetization has been mentioned. I see that it has been. Monetization was mentioned as a reason that Digg failed. What way does Reddit have to make money? Does it make any difference to Reddit, if Reddit has no way to make money, how much traffic Reddit has?

raldi 15y ago
Reddit has many revenue streams. In no particular order: sidebar ads, sponsored links, reddit gold (a for-pay set of premium features), sponsorships, merchandise...
- bostonvaulter2 15y ago
  I think Reddit could do much better with selling their merchandise, maybe by selling things directly. I don't think I was really aware of the reddit store, it's not very prominent and I don't remember many blog posts about it. http://store.reddit.com/index.html http://store.reddit.com/index.html
  - raldi 15y ago
    Do you use AdBlock?

maurits 15y ago

I deleted my account yesterday. As a community it has given me nothing back, except pictures of funny cats (ok slight exaggeration) It seems as if every single comment that hints to insight fulness, knowledge or that comes accompanied with a (scientific) source is ridiculed or downvoted into oblivion. And top comments increasingly are inside jokes. That is all ok, but I am not putting energy in it anymore. Compare that to HN, where I comment very little, yet nearly every interaction sparked an email or two with people who do cool stuff. Reddit commenters seems to take some pride that they are not as worse as their cousins at 4chan or youtube. To me they seem to be the internet white noise, and if they don't deviate into the tail, they will be fine. The usenet comparison by blhack is spot on I feel, so new communities will spring to live where others slip. edit:typo

ohashi 15y ago
If you got no value out of the place, I think you were doing it wrong. My city (DC) has a thriving subreddit that meets up probably 2-3 times a week officially to do things - zombie invasion simulations, drinking, board games, go karting, etc. It's been a fantastic way to just get out and do stuff with people. There is a whole subreddit dedicated to 'Barcraft' which brings watching pro starcraft live to bars (like you would watch any other sport). People are spending their time to put on these live events with help from companies like Justin.tv/Twitch. Those are two examples that hit home close to me, but I am sure you can find stuff for you as well, you just have to look and engage with the proper communities.
- maurits 15y ago
  You gave me a new idea. I have two hobbies, one is a niche, and its subredit is dead in the water. The other is so broad its subredit suffers a bit from the fun&games comments. Which brings me to this. HN is a pretty nice community. What would happen if we make it a subredit, /r/hn? Its a pretty cool place with a group of growing, devoted followers. All is good. So one day, it gets promoted to the default frontpage. How long before the lol cats outnumber the hackers?
  - 15y ago

oldstrangers 15y ago

I wonder why no one talks about the huge growth for imgur, which has more traffic than reddit... https://www.google.com/adplanner/planning/site_profile?hl=en#siteDetails?identifier=imgur.com&lp=true https://www.google.com/adplanner/planning/site_profile?hl=en... https://www.google.com/adplanner/planning/site_profile?hl=en#siteDetails?identifier=reddit.com&lp=true https://www.google.com/adplanner/planning/site_profile?hl=en...

walla 15y ago
The guy who made the site is a Redditor. People where complaining about not having a good image host so he made one. I think that site generates a lot of income for him.

paganel 15y ago

Unfortunately, reddit has started to hit new and new lows. See this recent highly-voted post for example (http://www.reddit.com/r/funny/comments/jvhot/i_found_a_girl_on_flickr_who_has_169_images_of/ http://www.reddit.com/r/funny/comments/jvhot/i_found_a_girl_...), where they're making fun of a poor girl's badly photoshopped photos that she dared to publish on Flickr. I've been on reddit since its very beginnings, back when its being rewritten in Python was causing huge discussions or when programming.reddit was still a sub-domain. I've lived through the 2008 elections stealing the front page from geeky-related articles, or when making fun at digg was actually considered cool (back in 2009 or so). Anyway, I never thought that making fun and hurting actual innocent people would really hit the front-page, I'm ashamed of having supported this website for so long. There are still some pockets of common-sense left, starting with TrueReddit which I think is more like an animal preserve for those who can still remember how cool and exciting reddit used to be. I'll also want to add /r/history to the list of sub-reddits worth following.

georgieporgie 15y ago
TrueReddit Wow, thanks for that! It's like Reddit, but without all the memes, manipulators, and obvious spammers trying to pump up their karma with reposts. That's the first time in years that I've felt that I gained something in exchange for my time.
- whacker 15y ago
  Unsubscribe from all the default frontpage reddits: reddit.com politics pics gaming videos f7u12 askreddit etc. and suddenly reddit looks much more civilized. The remaining reddits are mostly free of overt spamming and manipulation. checkout /r/depthhub for real good stuff.
- bostonvaulter2 15y ago
  I'd also highly recommend r/depthhub http://www.reddit.com/r/depthhub http://www.reddit.com/r/depthhub Other more niche ones are good as well.
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]

wozza 15y ago

The most likely answers are, “Yes, yes, and yes.” How did he figure that out?