
Show HN: Turning a subreddit Into a store - dmor
http://refer.ly/bifl___kitchen_essentials/c/f5b46e542de011e2a4ec22000a1d0d51
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dmor
I'm trying a new idea on Referly to help unlock awesome recommendations inside
of community sites and turn them into storefronts. What I'd really like is
feedback on whether you'd be interested in Reddit doing this themselves? If
you'd shop a store like this of the best curated stuff recommended by
Redditors I will pitch the idea to them.

And before you kill me for the affiliate links, the commission for every
purchase through this profile goes to Electronic Frontier Foundation.

Update: I wrote a more complete blog post on my thoughts for creating this:
[http://refer.ly/blog/turning-recommendations-from-the-
reddit...](http://refer.ly/blog/turning-recommendations-from-the-reddit-
community-into-a-store/)

~~~
fudged71
It's a fantastic idea, as there is so much valuable content in many of these
massive reddit threads; very easy to filter and pull out good quotes.

I'm glad that you're donating the proceeds to the EFF! Cheers

~~~
intended
Thats an interesting idea - I wonder if people would be more willing to accept
Facebook's "social advertising" if the proceeds of their advertising went to
the charity of their choice?

I don't mind being a supporter for something I like using, if the proceeds of
that go to support a cause that I think makes the world better.

At least that idea seems more likely to get over the acceptability hump

\---

Course then that would lead to all sorts of people coming up with charities
just to milk the idea. And then having sales people-charities-company
incompatibility.

~~~
fudged71
What's great about Amazon referrals for charity is that it takes no effort to
view their link, and you don't have to worry about the cookie, and your
purchase doesn't change.

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airlocksoftware
Reddit is already my shopping recommendation engine. If I'm looking to buy
something, I find the most relevant subreddit and either search for a past
post or make a new post. A lot of subreddits will already have a list of the
best related equipment. It totally makes sense to formalize it and make it a
little easier to discover / use.

~~~
intended
That formalized step (which seems inevitable) will then end up affecting the
way those subreddits work and interact.

This doesn't improve a subreddits signal to noise ratio, if anything it adds
another source of potential drama and comes way to close to what Facebook
tried with their advertising attempts.

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FelixP
Great idea, but desperately needs to list prices. I would also consider how to
best organize & present the products on the page.

Grabbing the relevant comment text might also be helpful (e.g. why was
something recommended? what is it good for?).

~~~
dmor
Good point, I can add prices (doesn't pull them automatically yet)

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fourstar
Nope. I don't like this one bit. Who then gets the money? Reddit themselves?
The people posting referral links? At that point, then the subreddit
deteriorates and you are left with a bunch of spam consisting of competing
affiliate advertisers trying to get their affiliate links visibility. I go to
reddit for the variable content and subscribe to subreddits for information
that isn't fueled by affiliate advertisers.

If reddit (admins) took this approach (not sure why/if they'd use referely
though since they could roll their own platform or use a pre-existing
affiliate network like Amazon), then that makes sense (and I could get behind
that), but I'm doubtful, as it'd take a lot of time and resources to prevent
gamification.

Source: I started and run a Top 30 subreddit and am constantly removing
affiliate links from peoples' comments trying to sneakily earn money, although
I do allow them when they put a disclaimer saying that they are posting an
affiliate link.

~~~
dmor
First of all, right now the bulk of the money goes directly to the merchant
and 7% commission goes to EFF.

Second, I am certainly not proposing that these go directly into the thread
itself. What I think is interesting is if it were a separate store that
curates the most highly rated that could be valuable. You'll see I did not
include everything, only the highest rated or commented items where there
seems to be consensus. I think it would still need hand curation.

I also think if it belonged to Reddit then only their affiliate links should
be allowed in the store, not affiliate links of Reddit users.

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w-ll
I did something similar a while back. It's free wallpapers, but the goal was
to build an app using Reddit as a backend.
<http://w-ll.org/2011/02/05/redwall/>

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thekevan
Danielle, can a user's store/profile have a custom URL?

~~~
dmor
Yes, right now profiles can have custom URLs (change it in settings) but
collections/store don't. Should we add that?

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thekevan
I think it would be useful. So basically a user's store would be at their own
domain rather than the Referly URL.

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ISL
Holy expensive cookware, Batman!

~~~
dmor
Yeah... it is expensive, the mindset behind the "buy it for life" subreddit is
that these are things you will have for 20+ years so price isn't as much of an
issue

