
Reddit Rumored To Be Raising Money, At A $400 Million Valuation - xmen
http://techcrunch.com/2013/01/06/reddit-rumored-to-be-raising-money-at-a-400-million-valuation/
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tomasien
With all the acquisition write-offs we see, it's pretty awesome to see that
this one has worked out so well for Condé Nast. It was such an unconventional
acquisition, and now it's worth about half of the New York Times.

Other giants in fading industries should take note.

~~~
apl

      > (...) and now it's worth about half of the New York Times.
    

It's one of those cases where I can't help but think, you know, maybe our
metrics are way off.

~~~
kami8845
Why is the NYT this wholy grail, that no company ever can aspire to be worth
more than?

For me personally Reddit is much more important than the NYT will ever be. If
the NYT disappears tomorrow I couldn't care less. There's other publications
that will fill its place. Reddit has allowed me to meet great people, have in-
depth conversations on topics that no one in my near vicinity cares about and
expand my knowledge into fields I never knew possible. It's a great place.

~~~
loganfrederick
NYT is one of the very if, possibly only, newspaper media companies with a
worldwide brand recognition to actually have value/goodwill in its own right.
That is why it is considered to be worth more than other media companies; it
is due to its brand and reputation. Not to say this couldn't or won't change
at some point.

~~~
clobber
And now Mark Thompson, who is tied to the Jimmy Savile sex abuse scandal at
the BBC, is CEO of NYT.

[http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/11/mark-thompson-
ceo-n...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/11/mark-thompson-ceo-new-york-
times_n_2115399.html)

~~~
chimeracoder
I'm sorry, what does that have to do with their value as a _news
organization_?

Furthermore, Jill Abramson is a far more relevant figure than Thompson in this
context.

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scottlu2
It's surprising that Instagam would be considered a billion dollar business,
but Reddit a 400 million dollar business.

~~~
kmfrk
Instagram wasn't "worth $1B". It was worth $1B to Facebook (and even more to
Twitter, apparently).

It has to be viewed in that context. A context in which Facebook was botching
mobile major time and described it as its major challenge in public filings.

~~~
chimeracoder
> Instagram wasn't "worth $1B". It was worth $1B to Facebook

Which, (given a fixed supply of exactly 1 Instgram) means that it was worth
$1B.

Whether Facebook _overpaid_ (ie, whether they would have been better off
spending part or all of that $1B elsewhere) is a completely separate question
- the point is, the market valued Instagram at $1B.

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loceng
It will be interesting to see what they do with the money. I wonder too if
they IPO if they will provide moderators a sum of money like Geocities did
back in the day.

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elchief
Doesn't reddit have 400M users? Sounds like someone picked "a buck a user"
outta the air and, voila, valuation

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devsatish
Reddit is a addictive big-time sink. The only way I can get some work done is
by blocking reddit.

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drivebyacct2
For what? I hate to be that guy, but I have seen a huge increase in "OP is a
faggot" style posts being upvoted in the main subreddits (just in the last 4
weeks). I've always championed finding niche subreddits, and I do, but the
result has been me spending _increasingly_ little time on reddit. I check
/r/rust, /r/golang, etc but that's about all I can stand.

~~~
rm999
When you see drastic and sudden changes in reddit, it's usually something
external. In this case the beginning of December marks the end of the semester
for college and high school students, who use reddit more during reading
period/christmas break. They will soon start school again and things will
return to normal.

That kind of behavior has been pretty much the norm for years at reddit. Not
to say it's ubiquitous, reddit still has great content and what I'd call
'safe' subreddits where that behavior isn't tolerated. Also, to be clear to
those who don't know, 'OP is a faggot' is supposed to be an ironic meme rather
than hate speech. A terrible meme, but I wouldn't want people to misunderstand
and think reddit has become a cesspool of hate.

~~~
lessnonymous
I hate this sort of joke. It reinforces the behavior for people who don't see
it as a joke. And there's a lot of them.

"Oh, it's OK and funny to call people faggots"

I wish regular Redditors would stamp this shit out.

No, I'm not being unnecessarily precious or PC. I used to laugh at distasteful
misogynistic jokes (and worse) but somebody pointed out to me that joking
about it normalizes it. And to the depraved part of society the joke is missed
and they see it as support for their depravity.

~~~
awakeasleep
Too true. And in the same way we forget "simple" tasks like googling a tech
support question are actually advanced behaviors, we become blind to the fact
that the vast majority of the world isn't ironically playing with our
expectations all the time.

And furthermore, irony and the "it's a joke" mentality can be used to justify
the continuation of behaviors that don't meet people's own standards. It's
easier to repeat a lame justification for thoughtless behavior than to spend
months working to break a bad habit.

~~~
wtvanhest
I have been reading hacker news for over 2 years. I started reading reddit
last week when I learned about subreddits. The vast majority of my friends
(all between 25-32) don't read reddit but are aware that it exists. There is
an insane amount of growth that could happen there. I don't know much about
their income, but saying "reddit is dead" or other comments because you don't
think the quality is as good as it used to be is a stretch when saying the
valuation shouldn't be $400m.

Seems to me like reddit could become the dominate messaging system and could
be the best possible choice to replace craig's list if they decided to add
classifieds.

It has huge growth potential and should not be underestimated so easily.

~~~
drivebyacct2
You may need more than a few days on reddit before saying things like "reddit
could [../] replace craigslist"

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cremnob
In recent years I've really grown to despise Reddit, so I'm going to get a
kick out of the angst that Redditors will feel when they gradually realize
that their interests and Reddit's interests diverge.

~~~
rplnt
To like reddit you have to unsubscribe from all the default subreddits and
swera to never read discussions in them. Then find yourself a nice set of
smaller subreddits that you like. Either there are alternatives with stricter
rules to the default subs or there are more specific subs.

~~~
awakeasleep
There are important flaws to this approach.

Every interest has different levels of content. Pictures range from works of
art that took hours to conceptualize, to images of a cat butt with a text
overlay.

As a subreddit becomes more popular, the greatest common denominator's
interests take precedence. And while you can attempt a solution by splitting
the sub community, say, no text overlays, that doesn't work as well
everywhere.

For example, a programming community needs to split into subs for languages,
and the technical level of the articles. This makes aggregation more
difficult, and ruins an information flow that would include a home for overall
high quality posters-- now they have a more difficult time determining where
to post, and must question whether the articles they submit meet the
requirements for technical depth etc.

Even then, the process of dilution begins again as the lesser posters begin to
inflate the sub communities.

~~~
rplnt
I tend to use the more specific subreddits. For example gamedev and python
instead of programming. But I'm there mostly for the community, not for the
generic news articles. That is python tools/libraries, gamedev
tutorials/experiences.

