4 ms·

I've got an honest question. It seems Reddit owes a lot of its success to Digg. Reddit was popular, but it didn't really take off until Digg screwed up and user

by jonmb 14y ago

I've got an honest question. It seems Reddit owes a lot of its success to Digg. Reddit was popular, but it didn't really take off until Digg screwed up and users had an exodus. At least, that's how it appeared to me, a Digg user at the time who also left for Reddit. I've wondered if Reddit would have ever been so popular if not for Digg's mishap. Am I totally off base? Anyway, I'm a fan of Reddit and it looks like a good book.

kn0thing 14y ago
reddit has never had 'explosive' growth, always steady month-over-month. The monday before digg v4 we had about 700K uniques and the monday after we had about 900K. In the grand scheme of things, digg v4 helped, since our chief competitor self-destructed, but the site has since far, far outgrown digg's highest numbers. I think you'd be hard pressed to find a company that triumphed over a rival without some help from said rival's poor decision-making. The useful bit of advice I took from the whole thing was how important it was to be aware of competitors, but not actually give a damn about what they were doing. Thanks for redditing :) all is forgiven about that earlier digging business. Oh! And a question for you - what kept you from redditing those years before? Were you even aware of it? edit: One more thing, we also owe a ton to digg for educating the market on 'social news' as a concept. Sadly, they also taught them awful practices, like that it was OK to game the system, so that we're now cleaning up the mess and explaining to publishers that it's not OK to try and game reddit: http://www.dailydot.com/news/reddit-ban-the-atlantic-phsyorg-businessweek/ http://www.dailydot.com/news/reddit-ban-the-atlantic-phsyorg...
- jonmb 14y ago
  Interesting. Thanks for clearing that up for me. A 200k visitor boost is hefty, but not as much as I guessed it was. I was aware of Reddit, and checked it out briefly. Amusingly, the interface/design is what turned me off. It's amusing to me because nowadays I highly prefer it over Digg's design, and even back then I generally preferred minimal interfaces. So I don't know why I didn't like Reddit from day one. I guess I was just used to Digg.
  - kn0thing 14y ago
    It was the Verdana wasn't it? My fault.
    - Killswitch 14y ago
      12px Verdana was the shit back in '05 when I was building sites then.. Now days I cringe.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]

by jonmb 14y ago

kn0thing 14y ago

reddit has never had 'explosive' growth, always steady month-over-month. The monday before digg v4 we had about 700K uniques and the monday after we had about 900K. In the grand scheme of things, digg v4 helped, since our chief competitor self-destructed, but the site has since far, far outgrown digg's highest numbers. I think you'd be hard pressed to find a company that triumphed over a rival without some help from said rival's poor decision-making. The useful bit of advice I took from the whole thing was how important it was to be aware of competitors, but not actually give a damn about what they were doing. Thanks for redditing :) all is forgiven about that earlier digging business. Oh! And a question for you - what kept you from redditing those years before? Were you even aware of it? edit: One more thing, we also owe a ton to digg for educating the market on 'social news' as a concept. Sadly, they also taught them awful practices, like that it was OK to game the system, so that we're now cleaning up the mess and explaining to publishers that it's not OK to try and game reddit: http://www.dailydot.com/news/reddit-ban-the-atlantic-phsyorg-businessweek/ http://www.dailydot.com/news/reddit-ban-the-atlantic-phsyorg...

jonmb 14y ago
Interesting. Thanks for clearing that up for me. A 200k visitor boost is hefty, but not as much as I guessed it was. I was aware of Reddit, and checked it out briefly. Amusingly, the interface/design is what turned me off. It's amusing to me because nowadays I highly prefer it over Digg's design, and even back then I generally preferred minimal interfaces. So I don't know why I didn't like Reddit from day one. I guess I was just used to Digg.
- kn0thing 14y ago
  It was the Verdana wasn't it? My fault.
  - Killswitch 14y ago
    12px Verdana was the shit back in '05 when I was building sites then.. Now days I cringe.

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]