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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."

27 of 49 comments (clear)

  1. "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 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.
    2. 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
    3. 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});
  2. 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'
  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.

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

    no, but Peperidge farms does

  9. 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.
  10. 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
  11. 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.

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

    I'm in Belgium.

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    /. 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. Re: hmm. by lucm · · Score: 2

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

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    lucm, indeed.
  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.

  17. Wrong by HalAtWork · · Score: 1

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

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    Twinstiq, game news
  18. 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