I'm going to build a community portal for my country, something between HN and Reddit. But I'm not sure if it will be loved by people. Does anyone know how reddit made it's popularity among the users and why many people like to use it. Some possible reasons:<p>- Early adopters which were friends of Alexis and Steve, constantly used Reddit and helped to build the community.<p>- Simplicity of user interface.<p>- New and better discussion forums. Revolutionary voting system. A good commenting system.<p>- They did guerrilla marketing.<p>- They paid for advertising.
They faked it until they made it, they created fake accounts and submitted / commented to pretend there was activity when there wasn't. A community needs people to work.<p>Alexis has some good stories / info on his blog: <a href="http://alexisohanian.com/how-reddit-became-reddit-the-smallest-biggest" rel="nofollow">http://alexisohanian.com/how-reddit-became-reddit-the-smalle...</a>
A great way to digg into this topic is by reading interviews and listening to podcast interviews with Alexis. For example, if you're a Mixergy member (or have been subscribed to the podcast to see this interview still in the feed), <a href="http://mixergy.com/no-reddit-didnt-copy-digg-heres-how-it-was-built-with-alexis-ohanian/" rel="nofollow">http://mixergy.com/no-reddit-didnt-copy-digg-heres-how-it-wa...</a> was a great interview.
The interface is part of the reason -- it's easy to navigate, and conversational threads are clearly laid out. There is an alert icon that tells you if someone has replied to one of your earlier posts, something missing from many social-media sites. You click the alert icon, and all the replies are listed in chronological order, simplifying the management of multiple conversations.<p>The public "font page" display is also intelligently laid out, with posts that have been read and upvoted ranked according to popularity.<p>And there is a voting scheme -- although controversial, the voting "karma" system allows the system to rearrange posts by popularity without any effort or intervention.<p>The site is broken into forums, and users can create a new forum if they care to.<p>I used Usenet for many years before there was a Web, and Reddit reminds me in some ways of those days (but it has a better interface).
I believe the big surge to Reddit was when Digg put up version 4 and a drove off a lot of its members. A lot of the older members of Reddit tend to lament how it went from a decent place to what it is now (reposts, etc.) which is why I think the Digg implosion was so important to Reddit's success. My guess, then, is that part of why Reddit is popular is because of the hands-off approach of the site's owners and moderators as opposed to sponsored posts and that sort of thing. The mods there step in really only when absolutely necessary and haven't really messed with the way the site runs.
If you are talking popularity, the sale to Condé Nast has to factor. Without this sale Reddit might have made it. The sale turbo charged user adoption ~ <a href="http://techcrunch.com/2006/10/31/breaking-news-conde-nastwired-acquires-reddit/" rel="nofollow">http://techcrunch.com/2006/10/31/breaking-news-conde-nastwir...</a><p>The biggest single factor is probably applying to YC.
For me it was the UI / commenting system. I had been a lurker on slashdot for years but never made a comment. Then I went to reddit and was commenting 5 times a day because it was so light weight and easy and was totally pseudononymous. (re: the last point - I have not made one single public comment on Google+, while I have made <i>thousands</i> on reddit. Reddit has just the right balance of pseudonymity). I also think that making it possible to edit or delete your comment after writing it, which was quite radical at the time, improved the average quality of conversations enormously. The very few poor quality posts I made were either voted to oblivion, edited to improve them within 5 minutes or deleted if I realized I should never have opened my mouth.
Most people hate their jobs. Give those people a safe way to waste time at work and they will. The Reddit spartan UI (blue links/white background) looks like you are being productive even when you are not.
I know a lot of people have already said it but I'm going to agree with digg being one of the biggest reasons reddit has done so well. I was amongst the top users on digg in its heyday (had the best overall success rates at hitting the front page second to kevin rose basically). When digg version four came out it really ruined the site. Most people left for reddit. I came here since tech was what I was looking for and this was a much better community for that IMHO.
The UI is easy to use, but I wouldn't call it simple. There is a lot of information, and there are a lot of ways to interact with the content. Every comment has at least seven clickable links and three pieces of metadata, compare with HN (four and two.) They just did a good design job so it doesn't seem overwhelming.<p>The UI probably has something to do with the composition of the userbase. reddit feels not just interactive but malleable. That appeals to geeks raised on videogames.
One thing that makes them successful is that they weren't trying to build "something between X and Y". Why would anyone use your community portal instead of just creating a subreddit or discussing things on Facebook / Google+ / etc.?<p>Why would anyone use your site instead of other online discussion forums? Once you can answer that you have a shot at being successful.
I'm going to have to say it was two parts luck and ease of joining the conversation. You can create an account so easily (no email required) and that probably allowed a lot of people to chat about subjects that they would normally not put their name/identity on. That's my guess.
The community is what attracted me to, and what has kept me going back to reddit. The comment threads there are full of people who genuinely seem to care about one another in a way I have never seen in any other site.
In my opinion the idea that made them take off was subreddits. Where previously I would have joined many different websites/forums for my varied interests, on reddit I can just join the subreddit.
It was the Lisp. No, really. I found reddit because pg posted about it on comp.lang.lisp and I wanted to give any startup that used Lisp a chance.<p>I came for the Lisp, but I stayed for the zombie dogs.
Regular content makes it a daily (or more often) read for procrastinators and people looking to share new links with peers. I think that's a big part of it.
I think the biggest factors are:<p>- unique user flows / user interface<p>- persistence (team + Conde Nast parent)<p>- big stumble of Digg<p>everything else is a result of these
They've come up with an economic way to homogenize the behaviour of community, this makes it really easy for people to fit in and feel at home. more here: <a href="http://jeffdechambeau.com/redditing-to-the-mean.html" rel="nofollow">http://jeffdechambeau.com/redditing-to-the-mean.html</a>