

Conde Nast's Reddit Asks Users for Donations to Fix Site - jackfoxy
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2366299,00.asp

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achille
This is turning into bad PR for Conde Nast. The news cycle is turning this
into "Conde Nast begging for money", which in turn is likely to lose millions
in the market.

It's embarracing too. Conde Nast executives will wake up this week to calls
asking why it's having to beg.

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DilipJ
The only reason they're begging is because they think they can squeeze money
out of Reddit's loyal (and generous) userbase. The costs to improve Reddit is
nothing to CN, considering the millions they must waste on Vogue parties and
whatnot. The total cost to run Reddit is probably less than Anna Wintour's
personal expense budget!

My guess is that this is the brilliant idea of the McKinsey guys, whom CN has
asked to streamline their operations. Some bean counter MBA probably suggested
that Reddit be put on an austerity program, and if CN keeps listening to them
then Reddit won't have much of a future.

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rianjs
Makes sense to me. Don't really see why users expect Conde Nast to send money
down the chain. CN/Wired Digital is in business to make money, and it's clear
that reddit's model isn't working. If the site provides utility to its users,
it makes sense that some might be willing to pay extra.

What's going to happen is that the donations will create a little bolus of
cash -- not nearly enough -- and then run out of steam. Then the reddit guys
are going to have to go back to the drawing board to figure out a long-term
solution. This will probably be a subscription model that offers benefits that
non-paying users don't get. This works better when you have content that
people are willing to buy, but communities by users for users don't generally
monetize that well, I don't think. What they might consider doing is figuring
out what their "niche" is. Technology? Off-topic stuff? Something else? Then
monetize the resource-drainers that don't fit with this mission. They could
probably talk to Ars Technica about that, seeing as how they're also a CN
property, and have nearly a decade's worth of experience in monetizing a
dedicated community of users.

If they don't figure it out, reddit will go out of business. Conde Nast isn't
in the business of subsidizing money-losing propositions, nor is any other
company. And there's no reason they should be.

~~~
duck
_Why_ did Conde Nast buy reddit in the first place?

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9oliYQjP
For the same reason they bought Ars Technica. It was an Internet play to say
"look we're still relevant." Except, they used the wealth they accumulated in
their print empire to try to prove relevance in the online age. Truth be told,
they didn't choose badly with Ars Technica and Reddit. Those calls are far
better than Murdoch's Myspace play. But c'mon, they haven't done anything with
Ars Technica or Reddit because the print guys don't understand the Internet
and never will. They need to be doing the exact inverse of what they're doing.
They tried to bring Reddit to Wired. Instead, they should have been asking how
to bring GQ, Wired, et al to Reddit and Ars Technica.

~~~
woodall
I think I understand what you are saying, however, I'm still not sure. Are you
suggesting they use their print publications to promote their online
resources?

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brianbreslin
this struck me as slightly shameful. if they want to setup memberships and
build a valid business model, great! but don't masquerade it under the veil of
charity. they are a for-profit division of a for-profit corporation. they
shouldn't have put it as a handout type excuse.

I suspect conde nast bought them thinking they were the "cheaper digg" and
then didn't know what to do w/them.

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DEADBEEF
Average CPM is around $2.5 - $5. Reddit gets 280M pageviews pcm.

Therefore, if it's only breaking even and not turning a profit then their
server, bandwidth & wage bill must be in the region of between $700,000
(2.8M/1000x2.5) and $1,400,000 (2.8M/1000x5) per month.

Either their servers are massively inefficient, they're paying their staff too
much, they're selling themselves short to their advertisers, or their offices
are wallpapered with banknotes.

Either which way, they're doing something massively wrong somewhere.

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jdbeast00
i feel like i'm the only one, but isn't reddit just really really hard to use?

* No subreddit directory (you can't even group the reddits that you are subscribed to)

* no groupings of subreddits, or related subreddits

* help is really bad ("subscribe" means hitting '+frontpage'?)

* Postings would be so much better off with a tagging system that would prevent users from having to cross-post

* search

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barredo
1) Sort of directory: <http://www.reddit.com/reddits/>

2) Usually, there are links in subreddits descriptions to similar subreddits.

2.1) MultiReddit! <http://www.reddit.com/r/php+perl+python+startups>

3) It should be improved, yes

4) I guess cross-post and double-post are hard, really hard to improve

5) search is a bit awful, yes

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jdbeast00
while i know it is possible to do many of the things i want with some
tomfoolery, these should be built into the UI so anyone can find out about
them easily.

~~~
barredo
Yes. The UI must be improved. It's almost an imperative to do so. They need to
hire a designer just like Twitter did two years ago. Twitter kept simplicity
and get a lot of style and really nice themes.

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ac132
It doesn't make sense to sell to CN and then beg users for money. If they
stayed independent it'd be more logical.

Why don't the founders who cashed in put up some of their own money? What
exactly was the purpose of selling if the founders are still broke and Reddit
is hovering around break even?

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webwright
The founders are broke? As far as I know, the founders are now angel investors
(and no longer work there).

~~~
ac132
I was being facetious, but I didn't realize that everyone that cashed out also
moved on. Makes more sense now.

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john8
This is lovely, considering that Reddit has, for years, been nothing more than
a sounding board for a group of nasty, dishonest, pseudo-Marxist potheads.
Take a look at /r/politics and you will see nothing but Obama-worship, profit-
hating and Republican-bashing. On /r/programming, the subreddit I would
visited the most, you will find plenty of mediocre programmers who do nothing
but attack the work of others, especially when that work is done in a "boring"
language like Java or C++, rather than producing anything of value themselves.

It is hard to see what value Reddit can provide to anyone outside of its
current, very narrow demographic, and I haven't missed it much since leaving
it last year.

~~~
john8
A downvote because I bashed a YC-funded company? Look, I stopped reading
Reddit for the reasons outlined above, and I am sure others left for similar
reasons. If you don't smoke pot or don't think pot smoking is a good idea,
didn't vote for Obama, and don't believe the government can solve all of our
problems, you simply aren't welcomed there.

~~~
DilipJ
The downvote probably came because you seemingly registered just to post a
comment listing your politics. The fact that you think the downvote came
because of a YC-related conflict of interest suggests that you suffer from
some form of paranoia or a persecution complex.

Reddit appeals primarily (but not exclusively) to young males in their 20's
and 30's. As a subgroup, they tend to lean libertarian, which is why they are
more accepting of recreational drug use.

Reddit has a bright future, but maybe not with CN. They don't know how to
monetize it properly, and they seem to be tethered to the glossy world of
magazines. Considering the success Tina Brown has had in moving away from that
via The Daily Beast, it looks like IAC would be a better fit for Reddit than
CN.

