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Reddit Is Testing Country-Specific Home Pages That Highlight 'Geo Popular' Content (ndtv.com)

Posted by msmash on from the breaking-rules dept.

Reader joshtops writes: Reddit is exploring a new way to make its front page more relevant to its readers. The social aggregation and discussion website is testing tailored home pages based on a reader's location in select places, Gadgets 360 spotted. The company has confirmed to us that it is indeed testing "geo popular" home pages. As part of the test, readers in Australia, Canada, India, Ireland, Mexico, New Zealand, and United Kingdom could see a banner when they visit Reddit.com informing them of the new home page. It's unclear if registered and signed in users are also a part of the experiment. Testing from India, in one case we found several stories from r/India and r/cricket (no surprise given the sport's popularity in the country) subreddits populate the home page. Reddit is also letting people switch the home page to any of the aforementioned country's home pages. Users also have the option to switch to the global -- universal -- home page. In a statement, a Reddit spokesperson told Gadgets 360, "We've been testing new geo-based popular feeds as a way to surface more relevant content to users based on their location," reserving any timeframe for when -- and if -- Reddit plans to roll-out this feature to all its users. "We'll be adjusting as we receive feedback from users," the spokesperson added, reaffirming that users will be "able to toggle locations to see popular posts in other geographical areas or globally."

49 comments

  1. hmm. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Informative

    Reddit is an echo chamber of confirmation bias that generates more harm than good.

    That is all.

    1. Re: hmm. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      says the anon coward to his own echo chamber

    2. Re: hmm. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "says the anon coward to his own echo chamber"

      Says the AC to another AC...

      However, being AC on slashdot doesn't attract arbitrary deletion of comments hence no echo chamber. ...unless it's scientology based... are you old enough to remember?

    3. Re: hmm. by HornWumpus · · Score: 1

      On Reddit, your post would be deleted for disturbing the circle jerk. Here it will just be modded down.

      --
      John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
    4. Re: hmm. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I got Amazon Dot. Where are my cock eggs?

    5. Re: hmm. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I knew a guy in 1995 who passed a kidney stone. He said he had gotten it from drinking too much soda pop. He never told me his real name, but he worked with video games, and he introduced me to NetBSD. That guy had a presence, and you always knew when he was in the room. Nice guy, pleasant body odor. I must have met creimer.

    6. Re: hmm. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Pleasant body odor and NetBSD. This narrows it down A LOT. Probably to single digits.

    7. Re: hmm. by desdinova+216 · · Score: 1

      no, but Peperidge farms does

    8. Re: hmm. by AmiMoJo · · Score: 2

      Slashdot is suffering from a lot of troll moderation these days. Something needs to change.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    9. Re: hmm. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Talking about creimer
      He's a complicated man
      No one understands him but his hand

    10. Re: hmm. by lucm · · Score: 2

      I'm not a fan of creamer, but I have to say, he has high-quality naysayers.

      --
      lucm, indeed.
    11. Re: hmm. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Coming from you? No. Things are just as they should be.

  2. "front page of the internet" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    "The front page of the internet" no more.

    "The front page of your market segment."

    There it is.

    1. Re:"front page of the internet" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Recently its been more like "front page of excessive virtue signalling, extreme identity politics, and endless inane clickbait"

    2. Re:"front page of the internet" by lucm · · Score: 2

      Yes, but now it will be geoptimized clickbait! Maybe it will even get regional. Soon you won't even have to know about things other people click on, the stuff you'll see online will be things the other cool members of the PTA "get". Think global, whine local.

      --
      lucm, indeed.
    3. Re:"front page of the internet" by MichaelSmith · · Score: 1

      Reddit already customizes their home page. I subscribe to /r/rtlsdr and I get articles from that small subreddit on my main page. This change seems to be just like an automatic subscription to /r/australia and /r/melbourne which I can turn off if I like.

      --
      http://michaelsmith.id.au
    4. Re:"front page of the internet" by Pseudonym · · Score: 1

      The front page of my Internet is an RSS viewer. It has been for some time and will be for some time.

      --
      sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f(q{sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f});
  3. Add IPV6 by Sam36 · · Score: 1

    They should add support for IPV6 first.

    1. Re:Add IPV6 by lucm · · Score: 1

      Phone numbers are the real internet. I don't know why we even bother with IP addresses.

      --
      lucm, indeed.
    2. Re:Add IPV6 by KiloByte · · Score: 1

      Why? Everyone knows IPv4 is the real internet. IPv6 is a third world wankernet full of poor people

      I'd say the correlation between technical abilities of a site's owner and IPv6 support is really high.

      dig -t aaaa slashdot.org -- hmm...

      --
      The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
    3. Re:Add IPV6 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      +5: Insightful

  4. I'm there already by HeckRuler · · Score: 1

    Eh, I already have this.

    Everywhere has it's own sub and I'm subscribed to my town's sub. So I get local news. But it's labeled as such.

    In general I'd say leave this sort of homepage tweaking up to the user. Power to the people and all that.

    1. Re:I'm there already by antdude · · Score: 1

      But do you use bookmarks to read these subscribed subReddits or something? My home page's top monthlies show random every XX minutes.

      --
      Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
  5. I wonder about Christmas Island specific content. by sinij · · Score: 1

    I wonder what Christmas Island specific content would end up looking like. A bit of a stretch?

  6. Clickbait hell by LesserWeevil · · Score: 1

    Reddit is where clickbait goes when it's been very, very bad. Nope and nope.

  7. Re:I wonder about Christmas Island specific conten by rogoshen1 · · Score: 1

    That's a rabbit hole no one wants to go down.

  8. Not a true measure of popular. by sethstorm · · Score: 2, Insightful

    It's a misleading measure of what is "popular".

    If it is deemed "controversial", or simply against the interests of admins, it's excluded.

    --
    Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
  9. Whoop-tee-do! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    What newfangled things will they think up next! By golly, I sure am glad to be alive. Just imagine that! Geo content yet. What a time we live in!

    1. Re:Whoop-tee-do! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's not newfangled when YouTube already does it.

  10. Terrible Idea by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    I absolutely hate this "feature" on news sites. When I visit an american paper I want to see what the americans are reading, not some shitty watered down version of my own country's news.

    1. Re: Terrible Idea by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yeah this. I think tailoring a user's experience is ok to an extent but these days I feel like I'm trapped in my own little bubble where suggested content is based on what I've looked at in the past.

  11. It already does it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    My comments on Slashdot are always deleted for some reason, but I just wanted to tell you that REDDIT HAS ALWAYS BEEN DOING THIS FOR YEARS. Creating a new account automatically subscribes to /r/brasil and other shitty communities they think I care about because of where I'm located.

  12. Do not want "Geo Popular Content" by Koen+Lefever · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I'm in Belgium.

    --
    /. refugees on Usenet: news:comp.misc
    1. Re:Do not want "Geo Popular Content" by CodeHog · · Score: 1

      Watch your language! //42 + 1 = 44 for very large values of 1.

      --
      Fat, drunk, and stupid is no way to go through life, son.
    2. Re:Do not want "Geo Popular Content" by del_diablo · · Score: 1

      You got a population of 11 million people. You will do fine. Unless its per commune/county, in which case... yeah, it will such for anywhere not central.
      Or you will just get shitty French export, being Mini France already.
      I also wonder if it will be a segregated horror show for Norway/Sweden/Denmark, of it will be segregated into their capitals and large cities.

  13. Bad decision after bad decision by SmaryJerry · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Just more bad news for reddit. It used to be open and free and now it's only good if you ignore the main pages and go directly to a subreddit.

    1. Re:Bad decision after bad decision by HalAtWork · · Score: 1

      Yeah I didn't understand why reddit was interesting until I started diving deep. This is sure to make it more difficult for people to be talking about the same thing. Which is the entire fucking point of reddit!

      --
      Twinstiq, game news
  14. Total decoy!! by gtcode · · Score: 1

    This is 100% decoy news. I've accumulated numerous incidents over the years where my Reddit content was clearly customized for me in the creepiest of ways. I would bet my life that there are major ML/AI shenanigans happening behind the scenes with our collective private data. De-anonymizing a user and experimenting on them is serious business.

  15. Reddit is for Hypersensitive Cunts and Faggots by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    and autistic pieces of shit

  16. This my dear friends by clonehappy · · Score: 1

    Is what we call the "beginning of the end".

    Every "front page of the Internet" we've ever had fails once they start overcomplicating things. Unfortunately they haven't yet reached the "death throes", but I've got popcorn ready for when they do.

    1. Re:This my dear friends by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You dont get 50% YoY growth by doing nothing! -- some random VC.

      They have already been fucking around with the formula since mid last year. They have allowed 2 small segments of their population completely dominate the whole site. One with a decent size and the other with autobots and click farms. They have thrown away their whole site to defend the click farmers...

      There is no end game in monetizing reddit. The VC's are starting to realize it.

  17. Wrong by HalAtWork · · Score: 1

    People who go to reddit want to see what's popular on reddit.

    --
    Twinstiq, game news
  18. Fuck yeah Geofencing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Fuck yeah Geofencing! Woo!

  19. Fuck locality! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The internet is so great because it doesn't care about borders. People who implement geo-specific behavior subvert and destroy the internet's greatness!

    1. Re:Fuck locality! by OrangeTide · · Score: 1

      It's all fun and games until some powerful nation forces extradition and takes you from your home country.

      --
      “Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
  20. Appeal to hypocrisy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "The Fallacy of Tu Quoque occurs in our reasoning if we conclude that someone's argument not to perform some act must be faulty because the arguer himself or herself has performed it."