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Reddit Surpasses Facebook To Become the Third Most Visited Site in the US: Alexa (thenextweb.com)

According to Alexa, the Amazon-owned web traffic analyzing platform, more people now visit Reddit than Facebook in the US. From a report: Spotted, of course, on Reddit by user IamATechieNerd, the stats will be a big boost for the social sharing platform, especially with many users still irked about the recent re-design. It's important to note that analyzing web traffic using a tool like Alexa is not an exact science, but it's interesting that it has now put Reddit ahead of Facebook. If the stats are to be believed, Google is still the most visited site, followed by YouTube, Reddit, and Facebook, with Amazon rounding out the top five.

60 of 108 comments (clear)

  1. Am I pwned? by Impy+the+Impiuos+Imp · · Score: 4, Funny

    Facebook? Reddit? Alexa?

    What are these things? Get offa my lawn!

    --
    (-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
    1. Re:Am I pwned? by Freischutz · · Score: 1, Informative

      Facebook? Reddit? Alexa?

      What are these things? Get offa my lawn!

      Well Reddit for one is the greatest gathering of crackpots, conspiracy theorists and perverts in the know universe, Facebook is an ego singularity and Alexa (well at least in my experience) is completely useless.

    2. Re:Am I pwned? by turp182 · · Score: 4, Funny

      Facebook is the saliva mark you get on a hardback without the cover on when you pass out while reading.

      Reddit has to be a brand of markers. I'm going to Amazon now to order some.

      Alexa, she's mysterious, and supposedly a massive blabber-mouth who shares your personal conversations with others. I haven't invited her over and don't plan on it.

      --
      BlameBillCosby.com
    3. Re:Am I pwned? by Krishnoid · · Score: 3, Informative

      Re: Facebook, ask your kids what it is. Not your grandkids -- they'll just tell you 'Facebook is for old people' and send you back to your kids.

    4. Re:Am I pwned? by Tough+Love · · Score: 1

      Reddit for one is the greatest gathering of crackpots, conspiracy theorists and perverts in the know universe

      True, but oddly enough you can find some pretty good tech commentary there from time to time if you are patient and filter well. But even with the influx of newbs, Slashdot tends to be better. Likewise requires filtering. And ycombinator is pretty much at the top of the clue heap, maybe because the usual pests find it dull.

      --
      When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
    5. Re:Am I pwned? by PolygamousRanchKid+ · · Score: 1

      Alexa, she's mysterious, and supposedly a massive blabber-mouth who shares your personal conversations with others. I haven't invited her over and don't plan on it.

      Oh, I think we'll soon see the day when Alexa will invite herself over.

      You'll buy something seemingly innocuous from Amazon, and it will come with a secret, hidden, embedded Alexa, which will spy on you.

      Serious conspiracy theorist nut-bags already have prototypes working in their labs . . . in their minds . . .

      --
      Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
    6. Re:Am I pwned? by AHuxley · · Score: 1

      A software solution that gets loaded as part of a streaming media or OS upgrade?
      That turns any networked mic into a live mic.

      --
      Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
    7. Re:Am I pwned? by antdude · · Score: 1

      What about Siri?

      --
      Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
    8. Re:Am I pwned? by turp182 · · Score: 1

      It's just a misspelling (and a bad one at that, someone made a big mistake), it should be Syrinx.

      It's a reference to song:

      Rush - 2112: The Temples Of Syrinx

      --
      BlameBillCosby.com
  2. Alright! by DontBeAMoran · · Score: 1

    Time for Reddcoin to climb in value! How about a target of $10 per coin?

    --
    #DeleteFacebook
  3. Re:What a mess by DontBeAMoran · · Score: 2, Funny

    Is news like this story a sign that we've reached Peak Internet at some point, and we're on the downhill side of it now?

    Good. That means that in a few years, only nerds will use it, ads will become useless, news will be based on facts and stupid users like me won't post crap anymore.

    Oh wait.

    --
    #DeleteFacebook
  4. Re:Agreed: Reddit is badly designed. by Pseudonym · · Score: 3, Funny

    Well they tried Beta, but everyone hated it.

    --
    sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f(q{sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f});
  5. Re:What a mess by Q-Hack! · · Score: 1

    Pretty sure that /r/NSFW accounts for most of those views

    --
    Some days I get the sinking feeling Orwell was an optimist.
  6. Good by dejitaru · · Score: 2

    I unfollowed everyone on facebook because it's mostly just pointless or political crap that I couldn't care less about or I would piss people off by responding with devil's advocate tendencies. comments on posts are just as bad mixed with horrible filtering of "top comments". Reddit though feels much more useful on specific topics and hell I don't even have a reddit account, but a lot of times if I am looking up a subject or troubleshooting something I usually will click on reddit posts that come up in search first because usually comments are more useful, at least more useful than anything I ever saw on facebook.

    1. Re:Good by iMadeGhostzilla · · Score: 1

      Exact same experience here but it served as an excellent litmus test: people who got pissed off by my merely trying to articulate an opposing argument to the mainstream opinion -- in my own status or on public pages, not on their own -- I realized are people whose opinions I don't need to care about. People who responded in a thoughtful argument I figured are open minded people who I should listen to what they have to say on various topics. Needless to say they were very few.

    2. Re:Good by JaredOfEuropa · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Not needing an account to read the content is an excellent start. That used to be a no brainer... until FB came along.

      --
      If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
    3. Re:Good by mike.mondy · · Score: 1

      Try finding sub-reddits for topics you care about. They generally have much better content and commentary than the default or most popular subs.

      ... Reddit though feels much more useful on specific topics and hell I don't even have a reddit account, but a lot of times if I am looking up a subject or troubleshooting something I usually will click on reddit posts that come up in search first because usually comments are more useful, at least more useful than anything I ever saw on facebook.

      This. Or, "these" rather.

      I never read or browse reddit directly. However, for some topics I find that tossing the word "reddit" into a web search will more quickly lead to useful results.

    4. Re:Good by Tough+Love · · Score: 1

      Facebook is going down but Instagram is going up, which Facebook bought because, you know, antitrust isn't a thing. One can only hope that Facebook does not buy Reddit. The reverse midas touch: whatever Zuck touches turns to shit.

      --
      When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
    5. Re:Good by LinuxIsGarbage · · Score: 1

      This. Or, "these" rather.

      I never read or browse reddit directly. However, for some topics I find that tossing the word "reddit" into a web search will more quickly lead to useful results.

      I find that as well. Much more useful results than relying on just searching the topic, which will result in completely worthless Quora posts.

    6. Re:Good by DerekLyons · · Score: 1

      I unfollowed everyone on facebook because it's mostly just pointless or political crap that I couldn't care less about or I would piss people off by responding with devil's advocate tendencies.

      So you make bad choices in friends on top of being something of a jackass. Neither of these things are Facebook's fault.

    7. Re:Good by dejitaru · · Score: 1

      pot & kettle

  7. Re:What a mess by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    If you find it to be a confusing mess, perhaps you should get off the internet.

  8. Re:What a mess by GonzoPhysicist · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Try finding sub-reddits for topics you care about. They generally have much better content and commentary than the default or most popular subs.

    --
    horror vacui
  9. Facebook App by Dan+East · · Score: 5, Informative

    Alexa mesures HTML / website visits to facebook.com. However, the vast majority of people who use Facebook use the FB app on a mobile device. A very tiny fraction of FB users do so using the website now. Facebook has 1.45 BILLION daily users. That's how many hits Reddit sees in an entire month.

    --
    Better known as 318230.
    1. Re:Facebook App by darkain · · Score: 1, Interesting

      Wheres the mod points when I need em. I came here to say exactly just this! Alexa additionally only monitors those that have it installed, which would be more of a Reddit crowd and less of a Facebook crowd anyways too!

    2. Re:Facebook App by AmiMoJo · · Score: 2

      Who cares about Facebook, how is Reddit still alive?!?

      I was assured that after they banned the Nazis and fat-hate groups everyone was going to leave in protest at the assault on free speech. Literally all Reddit users were outraged and already registering accounts on Voat.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
  10. Amazon owned by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Google is still the most visited site, followed by YouTube, Reddit, and Facebook, with Amazon rounding out the top five.

    Sure, but 37.8% of the hits to Amazon are people checking Alexa to see how popular their web sites are.

  11. Re:Agreed: Reddit is badly designed. by Tough+Love · · Score: 4, Insightful

    It amazes me that, after many years, Reddit has not improved its web site design.

    Thanks for that small mercy, compare to Google's improvements to google news. But Reddit recently did fiddle with the presentation and made it worse, with fewer comments per screen.

    --
    When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
  12. A little in column A, a little in column B by OrangeTide · · Score: 1

    It's not a mutually exclusive choice between either Ellen Pao or you being a bad person.

    --
    “Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
  13. info master by AndyKron · · Score: 1

    Well if Alexa says so then it's so! Bow to your information master!

  14. A Few Small Thoughts by resistant · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I'm an old(er) fart who has been watching the absolutely fascinating phenomenon of social media for decades. (Yes, I do mean decades -- Google "FidoNet" for interesting reading if you're into that dusty historical stuff. I arrived a little late in the game with my pokey 300-baud modem, but I was there. I even bought my first domain name when Network Solutions -- colloquially "NetSol" -- was still the only game in town. Network Solutions charged $70 a year per domain name and offered a horribly unintuitive user interface -- faugh!)

    I've accumulated a few observations from watching the long rise of Google and Facebook as well as the rise and fall of other successful or not-so-successful social media and web search platforms such as AOL, MySpace, AltaVista, GeoCities, Twitter, Snapchat, etc., etc., etc. Shall I include hoary old Usenet in that list? It's virtually a tautology to attribute the wild success of the web to the absurd simplicity of posting a simple website with basic HTML tags. Nor does the swamping of the modern web with extremely complex frameworks meant to overcome profound design flaws in the web detract from this point.

    Anyways. For whatever it's worth, I've noticed that once a web service, be it a search engine or a social media platform, moves beyond obviously useful and non-confusing features into self-important "lookit what we can do now" frippery, it starts losing its original appeal and eventually its regular visitors. Facebook currently holds immense power as the default destination for hundreds of millions of people, but the company isn't immune to the fickle mindsets of customers for its brand of free and paid services (advertising in particular). The recent antics of the ultra-liberal leaderships of Google, Facebook, and Twitter in subtly or obviously silencing prominent conservative and libertarian voices and thereby gradually alienating a wider audience constitute only one of several serious problems.

    Possibly more critical to the futures of these companies is the constant, ruthless manipulation of their audiences for maximum profitability. Mind you -- I say "maximum" profitability and not an enlightened "optimum" profitability. The former is the attitude of a greedy robber baron, and the latter is the attitude of a cautious business that knows what its customers want. Put simply, Facebook and Twitter in particular have become seriously annoying. Google isn't all that far behind. Their hundreds of programmers scamper here and yon in an unending effort to add features with little regard to how they clutter up the user experience. Hey, they've got to justify their salaries. Students of private and government bureaucracies learn this in Governance and Corporate Culture 101.

    Most people want to talk to their friends and share pictures and videos without having to fight and kick and struggle against manipulative, intrusive, self-serving algorithms that keep nudging and prodding them into buying this and that or forcing them to interact with their friends in certain ways and not others. Let's not even get into the absurdities of a grossly oversimplified "like" system at Facebook that permits no subtleties of approval or disapproval. Beyond a certain point -- don't ask me where that point lies -- they silently and almost invisibly become ready and willing in their tens of millions to to suddenly abandon an old, familiar platform for a better platform that does exactly what they want it to do and nothing further.

    Please note the concept of "non-confusing," which isn't quite the same thing as the older and more limited concept of "user-friendly." "Non-confusing" encompasses everything about the user experience. It means the platform only does what it absolutely must for the mainstream experience while making side trips like photographic manipulation as obviously simple as possible -- in and out and done. Visual triggers are okay but only if they quietly hover in the background with nil annoying behavior like flashing, blinking, sliding, jittering

    --
    A truly excellent pizza parlor is a delight unto the heavens. Treasure the sauce and the toppings!
    1. Re:A Few Small Thoughts by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      A conservative, pro-free speech alternative to Twitter called Gab tried to take off and it was removed from the Apple and Google's app stores because a supposed neo-nazi created an account (though I've seen no claim that he wrote anything that constituted hate speech before the app was pulled), while Twitter still has accounts for the KKK and the American Nazi Party.

      Of course, we don't only use social media on our phones, but Facebook, Twitter and Google's shadow banning is continuing and their potential competitors are being blocked despite attempts to create alternatives that people want.

    2. Re:A Few Small Thoughts by DerekLyons · · Score: 1

      Facebook (and Twitter to a lesser extent) are now too complicated, too annoyingly self-serving, and too confusing.

      Yeah. Somehow a billion people a day manage to type text and hit post - but that's "too complicated".
       

      The recent antics of the ultra-liberal leaderships of Google, Facebook, and Twitter in subtly or obviously silencing prominent conservative and libertarian voices and thereby gradually alienating a wider audience constitute only one of several serious problems.

      Yeah, here's the heart of your comment - you have no fucking clue what you're talking about, but it's all "teh liberuals fault".
       

      Watch for an abrupt market replacement for Facebook and Twitter to erupt from the shadows.

      Yeah, the right wing nutjob fantasy. Millions of lurkers support you in email... and are waiting to rise and strike overnight.

  15. Re:What a mess by Rick+Schumann · · Score: 1

    Maybe people like you are making it a confusing mess and should stay off the Internet.

  16. Re:What a mess by Berkyjay · · Score: 1, Interesting

    As a daily user of both Reddit and Slashdot for many long years I can easily say that Reddit has the far superior layout which is far easier to read and interact with of the two. Also, Slashdot denizens are much much closer to 4chan dwellers than anyone here wants to admit to. So my question to you is this. If you found Reddit so distasteful, then why do you hang around here?

  17. Re:What a mess by Rick+Schumann · · Score: 1

    You a very funny guy. I kill you last.

  18. Re:What a mess by Rick+Schumann · · Score: 1

    ..okay, I'll bite: why (and how) are they 'aggressively against you browsing their site'?

  19. Re:Agreed: Reddit is badly designed. by gringer · · Score: 1

    They've just (as in the last few days) implemented a "Compact" mode. I get 17 headlines vs 9 in "Classic" mode and 2 in "Card" mode.

    --
    Ask me about repetitive DNA
  20. Re:What a mess by ArchieBunker · · Score: 2

    She was the "fall guy" who took the blame but got rid of all the parts advertisers would find objectionable.

    --
    Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
  21. Re:What a mess by jythie · · Score: 3, Informative

    Reddit is a pretty general site, the quality of what you find varies wildly by subreddit. The front page is pretty bad, but individual boards can have some of the best discussions around.

  22. Re:What a mess by Bing+Tsher+E · · Score: 1

    Was that meant to be a recursive comment, i.e. a response you made to your own comment?

  23. Re:What a mess by Peter+P+Peters · · Score: 1

    Is news like this story a sign that we've reached Peak Internet at some point, and we're on the downhill side of it now?

    Good. That means that in a few years, only nerds will use it, ads will become useless, news will be based on facts and stupid users like me won't post crap anymore.

    Oh wait.

    The downhill side is the nature of the content which will continue reducing in standard ad infintum. Like TV and Radio it is degenerating to lowest common denominator stuff. Reddit and FB is the new standard until something even stupider comes along.
    The good news is that unlike TV and Radio which have heavily restricted broadcast licenses, the Internet is a free for all, so there's still a place for intelligent interaction, you just have to look harder to find it.

  24. Well, duh by Kargan · · Score: 1

    fb doesn't have pr0n. reddit has lots and lots of it.

    --
    Palaces, barricades, threats, meet promises
  25. Re:What a mess by AvitarX · · Score: 2

    Very frequent 1/3 cover ups asking me to download the app, and a really crummy interface (worse than /.s request desktop site, and maybe even worse than /.s mobile version) that does a lot of loading new pages to read comments in a thread and then losing place when hitting back to go to the main post.

    Even with all of that, sometimes it's the best place to get a good discussion on a topic. I never browse it, but give it preference when it comes up in my search results when I'm trying to get a question answered or a review.

    Similar to /., The community (at least in some subs) makes dealing with the site worth it.

    --
    Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
  26. Re:What a mess by AvitarX · · Score: 1

    I guess what I mean is they agressively want me to use their app, not their site.

    --
    Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
  27. Re:Agreed: Reddit is badly designed. by BasilBrush · · Score: 1

    Neither has Slashdot.

  28. obligatory... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    FUCK BETA!

  29. Good grief. 4chan for normies by shm · · Score: 1

    What'll happen next year?

  30. Re:Agreed: Reddit is badly designed. by AHuxley · · Score: 1

    Slashdot displays all comments as to settings a user may like.
    Other sites may have a gui that if interacted with could display some of the user comments.
    If not banned, shadow banned for US party "politics" or other "reasons".

    --
    Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
  31. Re:What a mess by jon3k · · Score: 3, Informative

    However, Reddit just seems like a crappy forum that doesn't even measure up to a freakin' Php-nuke or vBulletin site.

    Reddit is a collection of subreddits that are focused around particular topics. So the quality of commenting is relative to which subreddit you're in. The default reddits, presumably, don't attract the typical slashdot crowd. And there are tons of extremely deep, esoteric subreddits. The thing that makes reddit great is two things:

    1. You can subscribe to different subreddits and customize your feed
    2. The comment voting system and sorting system is pretty much the best the internet has come up with, and lets you filter out the garbage pretty easily.

    Here are some subreddits that I like that might appeal to the slashdot crowd to get you started. Part of the fun of reddit is discovering and subscribing to new subreddits:

    • /r/linux
    • /r/unixporn
    • /r/bsd
    • /r/lowlevel
    • /r/networking
    • /r/netsec
    • /r/itsaunixsystem
  32. Re:What a mess by Tough+Love · · Score: 1

    I think we hit Peak Internet a long time ago, but all of the kiddies think it's brand new. I directly visit less than 15 sites per day...

    When you finally drop off the internet completely, you die.

    What is off topic about that?

    --
    When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
  33. Reddit? 9gag! by Zorpheus · · Score: 1

    I finally checked out what Reddit it, and it looks like a boring version of 9gag for more normal people.

  34. Re:What a mess by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    As a frequent user of reddit I can tell you that while its upvote/downvote system is very good, Slashdot's is better. Reddit's vote system encourages simplistic views (simple agree or disagree), penalizes unpopular opinions disproportionately (to the point that people will delete comments to stem a tide of downvotes) and tends to reward popular ones disproportionately in the other direction.

    Slashdot's system caps has specific moderation reasons, out at +5, and bottoms out at -1. It encourages thoughtful moderation with limited numbers and distribution of modpoints (even though a lot of people interpret "+1 Insightful" as "+1 Agree") and limits piling on votes with hard caps, encouraging moderators to spend their points on a more diverse spread of comments.

    I don't think Slashdot's system of moderation could be just transplanted into Reddit (not without even more stringent bot controls) but I do think it might improve the discourse somewhat. If moderator reports in r/BestofReports are anything to go by, a lot of users would like to be able to say exactly why they downvoted a post, instead of just using the report button like a "super downvote" and choosing a reason why.

  35. Mark Zuckerberg by DrYak · · Score: 1

    Meanwhile Mark Zuckerberg has been heard, while checking the grocery list sticked on his fridge :
      - WhatsApp... okay...
      - Instagram... okay...
      - reddit... Oh, crap! I forgot to buy it !

    Then went and called the "snapchat clonign team" asking them if they could add a few more goals on their list ?

    --
    "Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
  36. Re:What a mess by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

    I call shenanigans. When reddit goes down for a day, slashdot's S:N goes straight into a shithole. Reddit may well have some excellent subreddits, but the average reddit user is wanktacular.

    --
    "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  37. Re:Agreed: Reddit is badly designed. by MBGMorden · · Score: 1

    I wonder if it's a case of just being used to the old way and not liking change.

    Though I've been on the net forever, I'm a relatively new user to Reddit, only having started using it within the last 2 years (and only heavily within the last few months). As such I had no particular affinity towards the old UI. I tried the new Reddit interface recently and found it pretty much superior to the original in all ways.

    On the flip side I've never seen a Slashdot UI interface that I didn't think was a downgrade from the previous iteration.

    --
    "People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
  38. Different sites, different purposes by Pablopelos · · Score: 1

    I like Reddit for a general aggregator. It is whatever you subscribe to, and you can display what you want out of those subscriptions. It is pretty clean, and only gets busy on certain subreddits. It has resisted a lot of change over the past years in spite of inner turmoil.

  39. Re:What a mess by Rick+Schumann · · Score: 1

    Why the actual fuck am I modded down to -1 Troll for this? Makes no sense.

  40. Re:What a mess by syn3rg · · Score: 1

    Might I also add:
    - /r/SysAdmin

    As a conumer of SciFi, I enjoy the subreddit devoted to Humanocentric Badassery:
    - /r/HFY

    --
    The contents of this message have been doubly encrypted by ROT13
  41. Re:What a mess by jon3k · · Score: 1

    In theory, what you're saying is right, in practice, it doesn't really matter. And because of the ease of commenting using reddits system compared to slashdot, more people participate. Generally speaking the funniest and most insightful comments bubble to the top, almost inveitably. I think this is because most subreddits contain people who are interested in the topic and are generally educated on it. In the big cesspools like r/worldnews and r/politics, all bets are off. But in the interesting, technical subreddits, it's really a non-issue.

    You also have the ability to sort comments by methods other than total upvotes, so you can slice and dice it in interest ways. For example, sorting by the most controversial comments or newest.