What is Reddit?
Reddit is a source of what's popular on the Internet. It's a website where registered users can submit text information or a link to a website and vote on any listing published by another Reddit user. Allowing users to vote and publish text and links on the website, Reddit has become popular and useful to keep up to date on almost any topic and to share information with others who share common interests.
Reddit calls itself the "front page of the internet.” It has a lot of useful information for people of all ages, displaying top stories contributed by users and voted as popular by users of the website. Comments are welcome, encouraged and are a top priority for many users. Frequent commenters gain "Karma points", so that good comments are appreciated and "upvoted", and those comments that do not contribute much to the discussion or are inappropriate are “downvoted".
History of Reddit
Reddit was founded in 2005 at the University of Virginia by two college roommates, Steve Huffman and Alexis Ohanian. I was purchased in 2006 by Conde Nast Publications (the people who publish the New Yorker, Brides, Golf Digest, GQ, and some other popular publications.) It's operated independently but offers Conde Nast's publications a way to discover interesting topics and trends. Reddit also sells advertising and is one of the
Voting on Reddit
Reddit uses a voting system to determine which stories make the top of the list of articles when a user submits an article, video, or photo, etc.. This voting system is one of the most important aspects of the website since users can raise or decrease the visibility of any published item with their vote. More upvotes, which indicate an item is popular with eReddit users, moves the item higher in the list of all published items.
?Since any user can upvote or downvote an item, the ranking of any item is subject to the opinions of Reddit users, which are typically technically savvy and younger. As a result, many journalists, marketers, and researchers use Reddit to find what's trending and becoming popular.
What's on Reddit?
While Reddit has a frontpage for all of the items posted, there are subcategories for almost any topic imaginable. These subcategories, called subReddits, are organized with navigation links and include Reddit posts and links related to a specific topic. Users can browse the subReddits or even create their own subReddit.
There are some standard subReddits for topics such as news and items that are rising in upvotes. These are all visible as links on the Reddit website. Other subReddits can be made up of various materials such as music, books, history, television, jokes, including controversial content, which may include adult material which is generally described and tagged as "not safe for work" or "NSFW". These may be comprised of some graphic material that is not suitable for minors or to be used during one's working hours on the internet.
Reddit is mostly comprised of users who submit original content or reposts of others' material such as news about things going on in the world or other interests. SubReddits can be comprised of just about anything from cooking to science, and there are lots of "subs" in between.
Anyone can make a subReddit based on just about anything. When a user creates a subReddit, the user can even moderate their own subReddit, using rules that are provided in the FAQ section of the main site. Essentially a subReddit is like a group of people interested in a particular topic, whatever that might be. And it does offer an opportunity for marketing as long as the posts and links are useful and not simply promotional.
Companies and organizations often use Reddit for marketing to allow users to participate in crowdsourcing ideas and communicating with the company or organization staff. For example, asking users for feedback on an idea for a product or service is a common use of organizations that use it well.
To my way of thinking
Reddit is another free, user-supported community on the Internet and like any community-based website, it offers useful features that it's users find beneficial. While there are a lot of sources of information on the Internet, Reddit offers a glimpse into a more tech-savvy community that is often at the forefront of trends.