The front page of the Internet is becoming the front page of its own. Last night, Wired Wired’s parent company Condé Nast, has a majority stake in Reddit. [/note] posted Reddit, the hugely popular and controversial bulletin board, is about to launch its own website, Supported will aggregate the best of Reddit’s content in one package that’s both user- and advertiser-friendly.
The move comes at a delicate time for the company, which is still reeling from a well-publicized user rebellion that has shut down much of the site and resulted in the former CEO’s removal. Ellen Pao has to resign A separate article Wired watch This episode is a “terrible crisis. ”[/note]. Much of the public anger is the result of small-scale efforts to turn into a rebellious and often vehement community of groups that, despite their relatively small size, have defined their reputations. The site’s is the place for the worst kind of online hatred. Between reprehensible subreddits like r/rapingwomen and r/coontown — which have been banned — and intimidating user interfaces, the site is scaring new users and advertisers alike.
Next is Upvoted, which will unambiguously distill the best parts of Reddit — the incredible stories, discussions, and creativity often aggregated on sites like BuzzFeed and Gawker — into an editorial venture. intended to make advertisers and users comfortable.
Launched today, backed by a variety of stories and formats. Pick this paragraph about how people spent their last day before contemplating suicide, or to take a lighter example, this part about what would happen if a black hole formed in your pocket. There’s even a weekly feature that showcases popular user art Shitty_WaterColour .
There seems to be only one prerequisite for publishing: Reddit users must influence each piece of content. Sometimes, the editorial team will simply add the introduction and then copy in the existing text; other times, they will interview external sources to answer user questions; and in some cases they just present a newspaper-style Reddit thread. Experimental seems to be the name of the game so far.
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Reddit and the rapidly changing content landscape
Although the new website is quite surprising, the website has not been launched for a long time. Reddit has produced a podcast, also called “Supported” since January and launched its weekly newsletter in April. And for months, employees have been talking about their turn to content. Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian discussed the company’s changing situation this June with AdExchanger:
Much of the content on Reddit becomes something users create themselves, not just link to. It’s a big change, and in response to that, especially over the past six months, we’ve been trying to build as many tools as we can for publishers who obviously love our content. we, [using tools like] “embedded,” but also enables new ways for us to reach existing and new users wherever they want, whether it be video or audio. We have this unfair advantage because we are a technology company as much as we are a media company, and we want to take advantage of it.
That last line is especially true: Reddit, along with other social media networks like Facebook, Twitter, and Snapchat, is also a media company. a technology company. The difference here is that Reddit was one of the first to launch its own editorial venture — but it wasn’t. to be firstly.
Tumblr, which shares similarities with Reddit — including parts of NSFW, dedication to freedom of expression, and a confusing interface — has relaunched Storyboard 2012 to help package and share all the unique content it publishes. copy on the platform, hire seasoned journalists to make it work. In other words, Storyboard is very similar to Upvoted, except that Storyboard is mainly published on partner sites like The Daily Beast, Time and New York Magazine An unthinkable move today is that social media has taken over distribution in the media industry. [/note].
Problem? Storyboard was shut down after just one year due to poor results. This insightful article on Pando attributes the failure in part to the odd relationship between social media and editorials—They may seem similar on the surface, but quality editing can often run counter to the network’s core competencies Society is open and sharing.
Reddit will have to keep all of these factors at bay as Votes mature.
What does this mean for the brand?
Like other social media companies, Reddit wants to host original content. In fact, Ohanian explains that publishers come to them with that exact request:
After Facebook announced New York Times / BuzzFeed Instant Articles, we started getting messages from people saying, “We want to publish articles directly on Reddit.” Honestly, we hadn’t thought about it, but it gave us the confidence to start exploring it from a product point of view.
While Reddit is still considering creating such a product in the works, it wouldn’t be surprising to see a product similar to Instant Articles in Reddit’s near future. Advocate is just the latest example of how content is distributed, and the Internet itself continues to grow rapidly.
Soon, media companies will be publishing their content directly on every major social network. They did it on Snapchat Discover; Facebook Instant Articles is still in beta but will be released soon; Twitter is making similar move ; Apple has Apple News; and LinkedIn and Medium have sucked up much of the content that traditionally comes from blogs.
Behind all these moves towards publishing exclusivity are efforts to consolidate power and user attention, which, in turn, will bring in more money for the Reddit advertiser who intends to run ads only. Original on Vote. [/note]. Backed will not have any separation between editorial and creative creation, making Reddit the latest in a long line of media publishers to break this traditional barrier. The company has also discussion create video campaigns for brands that can survive on Reddit and the wider Internet just like a traditional advertising agency would parallel Facebook’s Collections Initiative.
Reddit’s game of power also highlights one of the big draws of publishing exclusively on the open web: more control over the content itself. For example, Facebook has never been a place for free speech, which is one reason marketers love it. Similarly, Upvoted will provide a more controlled, sterile arena for Reddit to attract advertisers. The fact that the site has no comments or favors (despite the name) specifically speaks to the level of control Reddit wants.
Overall, being upvoted is more of a sign of the times than anything — and a signal that Reddit has entered an increasingly fierce arms race for control over where and how content is viewed. and distribution. Make no mistake, the war for content has only just begun.
