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Indeed, the obvious counter-example to that lesson is imgur.

danudey 12y ago
imgur is a good service even without Reddit, though (and I often use it just to send nice, short, copyable image links to people). TwitPic without Twitter is almost worthless, like a worse imgur. Its single defining characteristic was 'put pictures on twitter automatically!' but as soon as Twitter supported posting photos directly their entire business model was gone. Honestly I'm surprised they've lasted this long; they had no differentiating factor other than being new, and they had no real features that anyone cared about. I haven't even seen a twitpic link in years, let alone clicked on one.
billmalarky 12y ago
Imgur has taken clear steps to hedge itself from its dependency on reddit though.
- valarauca1 12y ago
  Yet it has not succeeded. Most of users base browses the sites "Viral" gallery. Which is nothing more then a "Reddit's 24 hour greatest hits", a surprisingly low number of images make it into imgur's gallery from imgur itself. TL;DR No reddit, no front page content on imgur.
  - LukeB_UK 12y ago
    Except there's quite a bit of content there that's not from reddit.
    - valarauca1 12y ago
      There isn't. User submitted is horrible. Most of the sites visitors are people uploading/sharing images normally via direct linking.
      - MrGrim 12y ago
        I disagree. User-sub is actually a really good time. Maybe you're just browsing user-sub/newest first? Try this: http://imgur.com/new/viral http://imgur.com/new/viral
  - atomicUpdate 12y ago
    > TL;DR No reddit, no front page content on imgur. With the number of image macro posts that are on the reddit front page at any given point, I'd say their relationship is pretty symbiotic. Without imgur, I'd argue that reddit loses a significant number of their highest viewed posts, and vice-versa. Reddit would certainly have content in their smaller subreddits, but their largest ones (AdviceAnimals, funny, pics, etc.) would be ghost towns without imgur.
    - ben0x539 12y ago
      Without imgur, they'd use any of a dozen of another imagehosts, like they did before imgur got big.
    - valarauca1 12y ago
      Reddit can live without imgur, and has lived without imgur. Its imgur who still needs reddit.
      - skeletonjelly 12y ago
        Not since the site exploded in numbers. I'd wager someone else will take up the challenge though, just like Alan did.
  - billmalarky 12y ago
    I agree that they haven't succeeded in removing their dependency on reddit, but you can tell it is certainly something on Alan's mind. I really don't understand why they have taken steps that really limit the community for no real good reason. For example, comments are limited to 140 chars, which de facto means the discussion is going to be incredibly shallow. The only reason I can think of is maybe Alan was afraid of reddit thinking he was trying to steal their users and cutting him out entirely by creating their own image hosting solution, so he purposely limited imgur's ability to develop its own community to not upset reddit stakeholders. (EDIT: It appears imgur has recently taken investment money from reddit, so now this threat is much less of a concern). For example, why hasn't imgur adopted a subreddit style model to help organize the content on the site? It's a no brainer to help develop individual communities with actual focus instead of having one giant "random" feed. Anyone who argues that would be stealing an idea from reddit clearly hasn't been to a forum before. All forum's are divided by topic... except imgur. |Most of users base browses the sites "Viral" gallery. Which is nothing more then a "Reddit's 24 hour greatest hits", a surprisingly low number of images make it into imgur's gallery from imgur itself. Additionally, using a subreddit approach would allow imgur to bridge the gap from "reliance on reddit" to all content coming from within the imgur community itself. That is, if imgur was to switch off content from reddit right now, the quality of the site's content would plummet. User's would be confused (as most it seems don't actually understand where the content comes from) and there would honestly probably be a huge drop in the userbase. However, if they adopt a subreddit approach, with the first/main "subimgur" being "viral" which stays the exact same as it is now, then as the additional subimgurs that get created increase in quality they will naturally begin to take over more and more of the homepage allowing for a seamless transition away from reddit content to entirely imgur content. Lastly, the layout of the site could use an upgrade in my opinion. I would prefer a hot ranked layout with full size images in descending order, basically reddit+RES with all images expanded, but with comments expandable under each post (or show top 3-5 comments under each post with clickable button to expand all -- or have the comments as a sidecar to each post when site is viewed on a desktop/tablet), which is a better user experience than having to click from image to image. Alan might be afraid that layout would kill their monetizable page views, since now they get a pageview per image where they can display a new ad. But the fact of the matter is, the impressions/pageview model of online advertising is dying fast. Using a feed instead of displaying one image at a time means imgur could integrate a native advertising solution, which pays much better than traditional display ads. If Alan is afraid of immediate drop in revenue that would come from transitioning to a new (though significantly better longterm) ad model, maybe it's time for imgur to actually take in some investment capital that VCs are constantly trying to throw at it. EDIT: It appears imgur has taken $40 MM in investment this year, I wasn't aware of that.
  - MrGrim 12y ago
    50% of images on the front page of Imgur come from user-sub. The algorithm that runs the front page was designed to do that.
frostmatthew 12y ago
> Indeed, the obvious counter-example to that lesson is imgur. Is that actually a good counter-example? Are they profitable? If so, would that continue to be the case if reddit began prohibiting linking to imgur?
- wodenokoto 12y ago
  Reddit is one of the bigger investors in imgur. I think that's how it's a counter- example.
- MrGrim 12y ago
  Imgur was bootstrapped for 5 years and profitable the whole time. Also, less than half of Imgur's traffic comes from reddit.

imgur is a good service even without Reddit, though (and I often use it just to send nice, short, copyable image links to people). TwitPic without Twitter is almost worthless, like a worse imgur. Its single defining characteristic was 'put pictures on twitter automatically!' but as soon as Twitter supported posting photos directly their entire business model was gone. Honestly I'm surprised they've lasted this long; they had no differentiating factor other than being new, and they had no real features that anyone cared about. I haven't even seen a twitpic link in years, let alone clicked on one.

billmalarky 12y ago

Imgur has taken clear steps to hedge itself from its dependency on reddit though.

valarauca1 12y ago
Yet it has not succeeded. Most of users base browses the sites "Viral" gallery. Which is nothing more then a "Reddit's 24 hour greatest hits", a surprisingly low number of images make it into imgur's gallery from imgur itself. TL;DR No reddit, no front page content on imgur.
- LukeB_UK 12y ago
  Except there's quite a bit of content there that's not from reddit.
  - valarauca1 12y ago
    There isn't. User submitted is horrible. Most of the sites visitors are people uploading/sharing images normally via direct linking.
    - MrGrim 12y ago
      I disagree. User-sub is actually a really good time. Maybe you're just browsing user-sub/newest first? Try this: http://imgur.com/new/viral http://imgur.com/new/viral
- atomicUpdate 12y ago
  > TL;DR No reddit, no front page content on imgur. With the number of image macro posts that are on the reddit front page at any given point, I'd say their relationship is pretty symbiotic. Without imgur, I'd argue that reddit loses a significant number of their highest viewed posts, and vice-versa. Reddit would certainly have content in their smaller subreddits, but their largest ones (AdviceAnimals, funny, pics, etc.) would be ghost towns without imgur.
  - ben0x539 12y ago
    Without imgur, they'd use any of a dozen of another imagehosts, like they did before imgur got big.
  - valarauca1 12y ago
    Reddit can live without imgur, and has lived without imgur. Its imgur who still needs reddit.
    - skeletonjelly 12y ago
      Not since the site exploded in numbers. I'd wager someone else will take up the challenge though, just like Alan did.
- billmalarky 12y ago
  I agree that they haven't succeeded in removing their dependency on reddit, but you can tell it is certainly something on Alan's mind. I really don't understand why they have taken steps that really limit the community for no real good reason. For example, comments are limited to 140 chars, which de facto means the discussion is going to be incredibly shallow. The only reason I can think of is maybe Alan was afraid of reddit thinking he was trying to steal their users and cutting him out entirely by creating their own image hosting solution, so he purposely limited imgur's ability to develop its own community to not upset reddit stakeholders. (EDIT: It appears imgur has recently taken investment money from reddit, so now this threat is much less of a concern). For example, why hasn't imgur adopted a subreddit style model to help organize the content on the site? It's a no brainer to help develop individual communities with actual focus instead of having one giant "random" feed. Anyone who argues that would be stealing an idea from reddit clearly hasn't been to a forum before. All forum's are divided by topic... except imgur. |Most of users base browses the sites "Viral" gallery. Which is nothing more then a "Reddit's 24 hour greatest hits", a surprisingly low number of images make it into imgur's gallery from imgur itself. Additionally, using a subreddit approach would allow imgur to bridge the gap from "reliance on reddit" to all content coming from within the imgur community itself. That is, if imgur was to switch off content from reddit right now, the quality of the site's content would plummet. User's would be confused (as most it seems don't actually understand where the content comes from) and there would honestly probably be a huge drop in the userbase. However, if they adopt a subreddit approach, with the first/main "subimgur" being "viral" which stays the exact same as it is now, then as the additional subimgurs that get created increase in quality they will naturally begin to take over more and more of the homepage allowing for a seamless transition away from reddit content to entirely imgur content. Lastly, the layout of the site could use an upgrade in my opinion. I would prefer a hot ranked layout with full size images in descending order, basically reddit+RES with all images expanded, but with comments expandable under each post (or show top 3-5 comments under each post with clickable button to expand all -- or have the comments as a sidecar to each post when site is viewed on a desktop/tablet), which is a better user experience than having to click from image to image. Alan might be afraid that layout would kill their monetizable page views, since now they get a pageview per image where they can display a new ad. But the fact of the matter is, the impressions/pageview model of online advertising is dying fast. Using a feed instead of displaying one image at a time means imgur could integrate a native advertising solution, which pays much better than traditional display ads. If Alan is afraid of immediate drop in revenue that would come from transitioning to a new (though significantly better longterm) ad model, maybe it's time for imgur to actually take in some investment capital that VCs are constantly trying to throw at it. EDIT: It appears imgur has taken $40 MM in investment this year, I wasn't aware of that.
- MrGrim 12y ago
  50% of images on the front page of Imgur come from user-sub. The algorithm that runs the front page was designed to do that.

frostmatthew 12y ago

> Indeed, the obvious counter-example to that lesson is imgur. Is that actually a good counter-example? Are they profitable? If so, would that continue to be the case if reddit began prohibiting linking to imgur?

wodenokoto 12y ago
Reddit is one of the bigger investors in imgur. I think that's how it's a counter- example.
MrGrim 12y ago
Imgur was bootstrapped for 5 years and profitable the whole time. Also, less than half of Imgur's traffic comes from reddit.