Reddit yet? Cute Aliens, Community News, and Youth Venture ...
Last night, I attended the Berkman Thursday Blogger Meeting which featured Alexis and Steve, Reddit Founders. Reddit is a community news service with ratings. Alexis and Steve received venture capital from a company that funds projects by youth (these guys must have been all of 22). ("Not enough money to live in luxury, but enough to be able to work on Reddit and live.")
Here's their elevator speech:
They hand out stickers and buttons, but have business cards to give to "older people" if they ask for them. (They let me have a few stickers for my kidsm thanks!)
Here's what I learned about Reddit from their presentation and the Q&A that followed:
They hate tagging, even though the interface design of their site may look like del.icio.us (minus the cute Alien in the logo who changes his shape, dress, or mood daily) The intent isn't to find something later, the intent is to collect news.
The logo changes daily. Yesterday, the name became "Spredit" ... Here's a holiday example.
Example:
Alien before Halloween
Alien after Halloween
Think of it as a Slashdot space with ratings for geeks who are tired of reading about technical news. While most of the users are early adopters, the content isn't just technical.
Reddit is like del.icio.us popular, but a broader selection of topics. There is 8-10% overlap between delicious popular and their page.
"Reddit" is not a mispelling of Rabbit is a pun of "read it?" It took them a long time to find the right name that had an available domain name.
The ratings are a human edited system and with a human system can't be gamed with filters.
The more you use it and rate, the better it becomes for you.
2,000 registered users – approximately 10% vote and 10% submit links
When links that you posted get a hands-up or hands-down, your Karma rating changes. There is Karma competition amongst users.
Dear Beth:
Nice summary of yesterday evening's presentation! I submitted a link to this blog article to Reddit, and it seems to be garnering some points.
Warm regards from Deborah
Posted by: Deborah Elizabeth Finn | November 11, 2005 at 07:27 PM