I noticed a new, spiffed up login, and it just occurred to me that Conde Nast must be shitting their pants right about now. In 2006 they picked up a startup on the order of tens of millions, that can now be mentioned in the same breath as Facebook and Twitter. Am I wrong?
It's a great asset, but I'm not too sure about that comparison. I think Reddit, for now at least, really lacks thought leaders. Facebook has all of a person's friends, and so it kind of covers the thought leaders for that person to some extent. Twitter has the world's thought leaders, people whose views are very highly valued - see the AP getting hacked causing a noticeable drop in the world's markets for example.<p>Reddit is a bit trickier. It has a lot of localised power - for example the live Boston bombers article was lightyears ahead of the media. It pretty much drove the media wave trying to initially determine who they were. It even has the world's thought leaders dropping in (Obama IAMA). But I think it really lacks the power to consistently put thought leaders in front of people. It's easy to argue it's a stronger community, but I don't think the average social network consumer really cares about the overall community.
Just a guess: I think they're exactly where they want to be. They're taking the "don't end the party at 11" principle to the extreme and refusing to (openly) monetize until the end of the world. Gold seems intentionally silly, almost like they're playing dumb. If I were a betting man, I'd say their route to bags of money would be to "fake upvote" certain posts. Like Twitter's paid endorsements, only super sneaky. Ask Taco Bell or Coca-Cola or whoever to come up with something interesting they can throw on r/funny or r/TIL or whatever, and as long as it doesn't scream "phony," Reddit will make sure it gets to the top. (That's not an accusation, just a hunch.)<p>>It's not the people who vote that count. It's the people who count the votes.<p>Joseph Stalin