

An example: being mentioned on Reddit - LogicX
http://blog.socialsci.com/the-value-of-your-start-up-being-mentioned-on

======
bane
We had a user post a Wormwall (a quick one page webpage service we offer) on
Reddit that made the front page. We hit 130 thousand page requests in 2 hours.
A pretty intense day.

It was also our largest moneymaking day ever (ads), eclipsing an entire week
in the top 10 hot stories on Lifehacker.

While reddit was intense, it was over by basically the end of the day.
Lifehacker on the other hand hit pretty hard, but the burn was much slower. We
were still seeing effects from it weeks later (mostly from second hand sites
that carried the story).

I wrote up a blog post about the LH event, but haven't had a chance to write
one up about reddit yet. [http://kymalabs.blogspot.com/2011/04/what-its-like-
to-make-f...](http://kymalabs.blogspot.com/2011/04/what-its-like-to-make-
front-page-of.html)

~~~
phillco
Reddit is like an enormous spotlight. They have so much traffic, but it's
focused on just 25 spots on the front page each day. As a result, whatever
gets on the front page receives a truly astonishing burst of traffic. And this
effect only increases as Reddit grows — for even as their size has doubled and
quadrupled over the years, all that traffic is still focused on the same 25
spots.

It's true that you can make your own subreddits, and of course you can keep
loading more pages, but the cutoff rate is pretty severe. A few non-default
subreddits (like /r/Frugal) do have sizable power since they're well targeted,
essentially functioning like mini-reddits.

HN is similar, but since they go out of they way to stay obscure, any increase
in traffic is practically accidental.

~~~
bane
Part of the problem is getting people to come to new reddits, even if they
might be generally interesting. One of the reason some of the bigger ones
_are_ so big is that they come as default subscriptions with every new
account. But yeah, it's a very intense spotlight at this point.

I'm wondering if they've ever thought of just building up pseudo-random front
pages for different visitors. So _everybody_ doesn't just see the same 25
links (which to be honest are mostly imgur at this point). Reddit almost
suffers from a critical mass problem. New submissions, if timed poorly will go
nowhere, while others will fly to the moon simply because other people have
upvoted them.

~~~
khafra
I like the psuedo-random subreddit idea--maybe a stochastic process that gives
you a new set of subscribed subreddits, taking into account submissions you've
upvoted. Have a button somewhere that'll do it, and another one to revert to
your previous subreddits.

That would help people get past the "I've been here three months and reddit is
boring now" phase, and on to customizing their experience with the worthier
subreddits.

~~~
bane
reddit is becoming abysmally boring in certain ways.

For example, a great majority of posts these days are simply links to imgur,
of pictures that already exist elsewhere. Linking to the source would have
provided greater access to a wider scope of content. You could probably get
much of the "reddit experience" just going to imgur and browsing recent
uploads.

------
flashingleds
A few months ago I posted a writeup about displaying a Gameboy video signal on
an oscilloscope (<http://www.flashingleds.wordpress.com>). It did the rounds
for a few days (kotaku, HN, hackaday, slashdot etc.), and I was slightly
surprised at which sites generated the biggest numbers. Reddit was at the top
by far, something like 25k in 24 hours without having even made their front
page, followed by slashdot (7k) then HN (3k). For a site that usually ambles
along at ~80 hits a day it was pretty crazy.

~~~
checker
I was one of those views. That was a cool project!

------
latitude
Now compare your numbers to what I got by running a sponsored post just few
days ago -

    
    
      8K+ impressions
      120+ clicks         ( 1.50% )
      40+ comments        ( 15 are mine )
      20+ subscriptions   ( for project updates )
      post score of 8-11  ( changes with every reload )
    

Run time - 3 days, cost - $130.

I suspect that we all here read Gabriel's mega-praise for reddit's self-serve
ads [1], but YMMV and it appears that natural mentions are far more effective
than promoted stuff... which is not that surprising really.

[1] [http://www.gabrielweinberg.com/blog/2010/03/my-duck-duck-
go-...](http://www.gabrielweinberg.com/blog/2010/03/my-duck-duck-go-reddit-ad-
by-the-numbers.html)

------
jechen
One thing to point out in this specific case is that the demographic to which
SocialSci directly benefits (i.e., survey participants) resonates with a
(rather large) subset of Reddit users, contributing to their surge in sign-
ups.

I'd even go as far as saying this kind of "organic" discovery by a more
diverse community trumps the spike in traffic generated by being frontpaged on
HN, whose user base is admittedly a little more technically minded and
bourgeois in nature, and consequently reflects poorly on long term growth
potential.

~~~
brianmwang
We experienced something very similar when drumming up interest in my startup,
Fitocracy, on the r/fitness section of Reddit. The key here, which should be
quite obvious, is to find your target audience and then get your message to
them.

~~~
jechen
Exactly the point I was driving across. I've actually signed up and followed
media coverage of your site for while- you guys are building an incredible
product (I'm a real advocate of the whole gamification concept).

------
rsbrown
Very interesting to see the detailed stats on the impact this had.

I'm hopeful we get to see the follow-up post soon: "Being frontpaged on Hacker
News"

~~~
chc
A few articles along those lines:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2733866>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2452178>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2228000>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1298501>

~~~
ohashi
Another (mine) [http://www.kevinohashi.com/20/04/2011/24000-domains-
article-...](http://www.kevinohashi.com/20/04/2011/24000-domains-article-
postmortem-traffic-revenue-business-models)

------
skeletonjelly
Might be worth even buying an ad on reddit (the ones up the top) and targeting
it at that subreddit. Being open and immersive with your customers (especially
the denizens of reddit) pays off from what I've seen.

------
Zakuzaa
404?

~~~
masklinn
They fixed it, apparently.

