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Reddit Promises Post Sponsors a 'Walled Garden' of Conversation (cnbc.com)

"Reddit has been actively luring advertisers as it attempts to take advantage of its vast audience to build its business," reports CNBC, adding that Reddit "has indicated it wants to increase advertising across the site, including more display and mobile ads and sponsored opportunities." An anonymous reader quotes their report: The 13-year-old company is now trying to expand and is making an aggressive push to get advertisers on board... [R]epresentatives from a half-dozen ad agencies told CNBC they've been pitched by Reddit within the past year about the company's plans to help brands target users. CNBC also obtained a 28-page presentation that Reddit has been sharing with advertisers...

Reddit is taking proactive steps to help clients protect their brands. In addition to its system of volunteer moderators and upvoting as a way to police content, three agencies that spoke with CNBC about Reddit said the company has discussed investing in technology like natural language bots to find questionable posts and hiring more people to monitor the threads. Reddit's ad deck has a section dedicated to "brand safety," where it explains how it places advertiser content in "white-listed" categories that are safe and has a team that watches over it. "Our dedicated account team constantly monitors Your Reddit Ad to ensure engagement is relevant and positive -- creating a 'walled garden' of conversation you can moderate or ban as needed," the slide says.

The artilce points out that Reddit is the third most-trafficked site in the U.S., but has far less ad revenue than other tech giants.
  • Google: $95 billion in 2018
  • Facebook: $40 billion
  • Amazon: $2 billion (from advertising) in the last three months
  • Twitter: $655 million in the first three months of 2018
  • Reddit: Over $100 million projected for 2018

63 comments

  1. Growth? by lucasnate1 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    We keep hearing about how "economic growth" is a good thing. And yet, in practice, it seems that when a service gets "economic growth" (cable TV is a good example), it becomes shittier. Yet, we cling to "economic growth" like priests in a church.

    1. Re:Growth? by Ol+Olsoc · · Score: 1

      Yet, we cling to "economic growth" like priests in an Altar Boy.

      FIxed that for ya.

      --
      The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
    2. Re:Growth? by Spamalope · · Score: 1

      Market share, not economic growth. Even if there is economic decline (netflix eroding cable subs), the screws get tightened when market share is high.

      i.e. Once market share reaches the point that consumer choice is crushed, the company can behave abusively (aka 'fully monetize the customer') - as seen in cable TV where you've got 1 provider.

    3. Re:Growth? by gweihir · · Score: 1

      "More ad revenue" is not "growth". It is just shifting around of money. Also, if they do not have the ad revenue now because of their visitors, if they ban/intimidate/moderate their current visitors away, they will have less visitors and will become irrelevant when people move away to places where they can actually express themselves. In the end, this may just kill Reddit, in a typical result from greed combined with stupidity.

      --
      Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
    4. Re:Growth? by mellon · · Score: 1

      Yup, the reason reddit is the third most trafficked site on the Internet is that it mostly doesn't suck. I don't mind buying reddit gold to kill the ads; hopefully they won't get rid of that in their quest to monetize my eyeballs. If they do, oh well, it's not like reddit would be that hard to replicate.

    5. Re:Growth? by rtb61 · · Score: 1

      In this case, strictly the economic growth of the investors. Watch out for the investors behind Reddit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/..., they are not to be trusted.

      This story, their plan, a pump and dump, run up short term income by turning Reddit into a straight up propaganda channel, especially targeting upcoming elections and they sell, sell, sell, before censored Reddit users abandon the platform.

      A lot of people go there mainly as a result of internet searches. Many of the forums are empty and most are inbred, either agreed or be censored out of existence. Lots of useful information buried in Reddit but the site is shite as a forum, nearly all threads are totally inbred and allow no new ideas or discussions, that is killing the site, slowly but surely.

      That slow grinding death with no future, the reason why the propaganda web site shift to feed short term revenue boost and a pump and dump, before the haemorrhage too many censored users. They know, they absolutely know, they will lose too many users when they start censoring them but they will not mention that in the pump and dump scam.

      --
      Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
    6. Re: Growth? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Praise be! Praise be!
      Let the gods of Jobs pour their blessings of eternal work without pay unto them and let the wealth rise rise to us.

  2. Like Reddit ever was anything but ads by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    and propaganda.

    Apart from the blatantly obvious memes, like the Nutella one or that Nokia one,
    how could anyone look at their front page, and declare they are anything but an "ads and PRopaganda disguised as memes" site? You'd have to be a world class blackeyer.

    1. Re:Like Reddit ever was anything but ads by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This. Why pay for advertising when you can register 100,000 accounts and run a massive viral marketing campaign practically for free (minus the cost of the recaptcha solving service you'll need to hire to do the 100,000 registrations, and possibly hiring a botnet depending how good reddit's automated vote filtering is)?

      If it worked for Hillary, it can work for you! Oh, wait...

    2. Re:Like Reddit ever was anything but ads by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I agree, I like Reddit for its cat gifs but the massive viral/hidden marketing is obvious. Stupid star wars "memes" on the front page every second day, etc. It's ridiculous but I also think most redditors are aware of these manipulation attempts. What's hilarious is that there are often those pictures of half-naked ladies on the front page whose name nobody has ever heard and who get only a few comments - nobody cares!

  3. How about doing it right? by cirby · · Score: 4, Interesting

    If you want to include ads, put them directly in the code. Keep them simple. No autoplay on videos. No sudden sound playback. Don't link out to external sites, that's why so much advertising gets screwed up, and causes slow page load times as a minimum issue.

    Don't "protect" your sponsors. If you have to do that, you probably don't want them in the first place. Put the ad up, supply a link to their site, and be done with it.

    Other companies have done what reddit is planning on doing. You know... Yahoo!, MySpace, Facebook...

    1. Re: How about doing it right? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This is what I want, but this is not what I expect we will get. There is a reason Iâ(TM)m already using 3rd party apps so I donâ(TM)t see the advertisements on mobile. The experience is no longer worth my time is every fifth line becomes an advertisement.

  4. The only things in nature, that grow infinitely .. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    ... are deadly pathogens and explosions.

    Everyting that survives, is in an elegant balance and goes in closed cycles.
    That is the only way to prevent resourcr exhaustion and hence death.

    It is so brutally obvious that infinite exponential growth is impossible, that no explanation in the world will help those who don't get it.
    If they wouldn't harm others with them, we could just let it accelerate towards its obvious end, and let the problem solve itself.

  5. If you are too scared to advertise by xack · · Score: 1

    Then you are not a company worth my business.

    1. Re: If you are too scared to advertise by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If a company has something at the right price, I buy. Couldn't care less if they do any advertising. Why do you care?

    2. Re: If you are too scared to advertise by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      They usually like to stick to their own clan like facebook, bloomberg, etc. Gotta keep the money rolling in.

    3. Re: If you are too scared to advertise by admin7087 · · Score: 1

      Many companies who advertise a lot have crappy products. I've found over the decades that many large companies and corporations such as Sony or Logitech, just to name two randomly chosen but very typical examples, sell products that are strictly inferior to those of smaller, lesser known companies.

    4. Re:If you are too scared to advertise by athmanb · · Score: 1

      Great products don't need advertising, people will buy them anyway.
      What needs advertising is the mediocre and bad stuff.

    5. Re: If you are too scared to advertise by Anne+Thwacks · · Score: 1
      Many companies who advertise a lot have crappy products.

      As my grandmother used to say "the adverts speak very highly of it, dear" - implying that no one would speak highly of it unless well paid.

      --
      Sent from my ASR33 using ASCII
  6. Reddit will quickly spiral into irrelevance by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    >creating a ‘walled garden’ of conversation you [the advertiser] can moderate or ban as needed," the slide says.

    Giving the advertiser upvote control and banning privileges over the subreddit's mods is going to go over real well I predict. LOL

    1. Re:Reddit will quickly spiral into irrelevance by Ol+Olsoc · · Score: 1

      >creating a ‘walled garden’ of conversation you [the advertiser] can moderate or ban as needed," the slide says.

      Giving the advertiser upvote control and banning privileges over the subreddit's mods is going to go over real well I predict. LOL

      Exactly - I mean who in the bloody hell is going to want to participate in a forum like that?

      Oh look Ads! We want ads! we want to be controlled by advertizers and never ever post anythin that displeases the Advertiser!

      Next up? Television ads where they tap into your Google Home or Amazon Echo and send thugs to beat the shit out of you if you say anything bad about the products.

      --
      The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
  7. Tech??? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Reddit is not a tech company.

  8. I could see sponsored subs by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    As long as they keep the ability to keep unsponsored ones. I'd love, for example, to see Korg maintain a branded subreddit as an official, longer format channel than, say, twitter. But I would be irritated if this meant they would prevent a non-affiliated subreddit that discusses Korg gear outside the official channel from being formed. If they can make that work, good for them.

  9. I don't see ads on any sites by C18H27NO3+ · · Score: 4, Funny

    so knock yourself out, Reddit.

    1. Re:I don't see ads on any sites by gweihir · · Score: 1

      Same here. In a sense, we are the new 1% though...

      --
      Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
    2. Re:I don't see ads on any sites by buravirgil · · Score: 1

      Your browser's session configurations are all well and good on hardware made to compute, but killing the motherboard is coming whether it has been called thin clients, or now appliances, ... whatever, it doesn't matter, and...

      Until such time, not seeing ads is a marginally useful control group.

      --
      Would were! Should is! Could be! And live a hundred times three.
    3. Re:I don't see ads on any sites by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Not seeing ads isn't the same thing as not having your data harvested and sold. So, the people who 'are not seeing ads so everything is ok' are just other types of dumb shits.

  10. Safe Places by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    It amazes me that today even ads need their safe spaces. Safe spaces are completely the wrong approach. All they do is reinforce whatever it is they're trying to prevent (unless it's group think). I don't blame a company if its microwave ad shows up next to a story of a dead baby. Anyone who gets upset about that needs to grow up.

    1. Re:Safe Places by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I think it's less directly worrying about their brand as it is preemptive insurance against vindictive sjw twitter mobs.

    2. Re:Safe Places by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2

      Are you really surprised though? These companies are simply not able or prepared to deal with feedback disseminated on the same the level as their own PR. Over a zillion marketing years, they became used to the Broadcast-Goes-1-Way-Only style and this new interactive model hampers their ability to 'control their message'.

      What they want, is to make sure they can puff-up and rave about whatever trash they are selling people, and specifically not have unfavourable views presented.

      They are disgusting and weak, just like everyone else who "needs a safe space".

  11. What's /.'s ad revenue compared to its traffic? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    How does the ad revenue of /. compare to the amount of traffic it gets?

  12. Re: What's /.'s ad revenue compared to its traffic by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Shit traffic and negative growth == lousy ad sales and /. getting sold every 6 months

  13. And just like that by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Reddit became Facebook. Goodbye, Reddit, it was fun while it lasted.

  14. Re:The only things in nature, that grow infinitely by rrohbeck · · Score: 1

    Don't forget cancer.

    But of course mainstream economics assumes infinite growth. Mainstream politics is based on mainstream economics.

    Good luck with that.

  15. REMINDER TO #FUCKBETA by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    add this to your host files
    0.0.0.0 www.reddit.com

  16. Re: What's /.'s ad revenue compared to its traffi by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    If your post occasionally gets modded down for no apparent reason, you probably just ran into an asshole.

    If lots of your posts keep getting modded down no apparent reason, you just might be the asshole.

    Seems simple/obvious enough.

  17. A company and an economy are different by raymorris · · Score: 1

    The United States is an economy. It can have economic growth, or it can have a recession.

    Comcast is a company, not an economy. A company getting bigger isn't economic growth. Let's not confuse the two different things.

    Would you like to make a case that recession (economic shrinking) is a good thing?

    Or is your point that larger companies often provide mediocre products, which has absolutely nothing at all to do with economic growth?

    1. Re:A company and an economy are different by lucasnate1 · · Score: 1

      How about stablizing?

  18. Re:Communist audience vs. capitalist advertisers by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    As anyone who has used reddit knows, the audience there tend to be quasi-communis

    WTF are you talking about? That site has ten thousand separate areas, each policed by different people.

  19. Re: What's /.'s ad revenue compared to its traffi by greenwow · · Score: 1

    Post something not negative to /r/poltics and see what happens. I was banned last week for posting a story about more jobs than were expected were added last month.

    The banning there is out of control.

  20. Obsessed With Disguising It as Content by Kunedog · · Score: 3, Insightful
    I wrote about this three years ago during AMAgeddon under Chairman Pao, so Reddit has been behaving this way and trying to push "safe spaces" like this for a long time:

    https://news.slashdot.org/comm...

    [Marketers] want to buy their way in, but not if some dirty peasant can tell the truth and (through sheer merit) get voted up and be taken just as seriously (or more seriously) than their bought & paid for message.

    So Reddit sees advertisers chomping at the bit to throw money at it, but first Reddit has to demonstrate that it can crush contrary opinions at will.

    Those normal ads you speak of aren't good enough for Reddit's leadership. They clearly believe there is enormous value to leveraging synergies^W^W . . er . . I mean, disguising their ads (if only at first glance) as posts by normal users, and they appear completely blind to the damage this does to their user experience. I see a couple possibilities:

    (1) They really believe enough users will be entirely fooled and "engage with the brand" to offset the users who are pissed off and (eventually) never fooled again.

    (2) They're aware of how it pisses users off and only care about convincing advertisers of (1).

  21. Re:Communist audience vs. capitalist advertisers by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I'm the most liberal person I know, but I've still been banned from over a dozen subreddits for not being liberal enough. The first one was /r/hillaryclinton/ and the second one /r/politics even before it went even farther left. The subreddit that claims to be neutral is so far past communism that even my friend that is a mod on /r/FULLCOMMUNISM mocks them sometimes.

    If you're liberal there, you will be banned for not wanting a fascist/leftist government that controls our lives.

  22. Re: The only things in nature, that grow infinitel by bestweasel · · Score: 2

    But it's working out so well for a very few of us?

  23. Re: What's /.'s ad revenue compared to its traff by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    "comments promoting a left-wing agenda upmodded, while anyone with real insight or with truthful information gets downmodded"

    Here we see the unaware right-wing douchebag in its natural habitat - cluelessness.

  24. Owned by the owners by Bing+Tsher+E · · Score: 1

    A problem on Reddit can be when a forum is owned by the owners. An example of this is the Albion Online forum. It is moderated by the employees of the company that produces the MMO 'Albion Online'. For this reason it's just as 'critical' of the way the MMO is operated as the official Albion Online forums.

  25. Re: What's /.'s ad revenue compared to its traff by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Reddit has been an utter shithole of censorship and groupthink for as long as I can remember. Slashdot, despite its troll brigades and other flaws, has always been and remains incomparably better.

  26. Re: Communist audience vs. capitalist advertisers by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You wouldn't know a real commie if one walked up and expropriated your means of production.

  27. Re: What's /.'s ad revenue compared to its traffi by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The groupthink in reddit's politics and worldnews subs is something to behold. People who have been exposed to too much propaganda and driven to hysterical rantings. If you want to see how bad it really gets, check out "the_mueller" sub. It's like a digital loony bin.

  28. Re:Communist audience vs. capitalist advertisers by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Probably because of what shows up on the main page. It's cat/dog pictures, lame memes, videos of people injuring themselves, and far too often, insanity from extremist subs like /r/latestagecapitalism.

    The lesson here is: avoid the main page and stick to the specific subreddits.

  29. they won't keep 'em.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    until they start actually policing their site instead of ignoring those which should have been shut down long ago, simply because they bring in extra users and page views and keeps the site in the news.

  30. SJW police do not grow a brand by AHuxley · · Score: 1

    People want to talk about topics. Just like they did on the internet for free.
    When a SJW steps in to ban, remove, report that stops the flow of a normal conversation between normal people enjoying a conversation on a listed topic.
    Users then have to self censor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... and second guess the politics of the SJW appointed to control content.
    That gets a censorship reputation. Whats has the political SJW set up as their red line for comments and content https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... today?
    Ban history? A funny movie review? Art? Blasphemy so the international ads can be supported? Culture? A user created meme? A cartoon? A comment? A link to the news?
    People start looking around for the creative fun that once existing. A site that can support a joke, a laugh, be educational, be fun, show news, show faith, show the workings of a cult.
    Brands that have freedom of speech and freedom after speech allow more fun and new content to be interacted with.
    People who create new content and get real views move to sites and brands they know will support their freedoms.
    The people who enjoy their content move ads and money with them.

    SJW sites and brands are then used as a free link to get a community to a new site that supports freedom.
    The ads are waiting with the better content on the new fun site.

    Not many people want to read along with governments, read a celebrities approved movie review. Have their comments removed and accounts banned. Just for using a site.
    Want to publish as a SJW walled garden? Buy a printed SJW magazine, newspaper. All content is approved and ads set out.

    --
    Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
  31. Re: What's /.'s ad revenue compared to its traff by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    yep. you nailed it.

  32. Re: Communist audience vs. capitalist advertisers by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    A commie can't be silent he or she will tell you directly

  33. We can have game developers sacked... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    And get massive amounts of ad revenue while we do it!

  34. Why haven't they done this yet? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Reddit is really the perfect place to advertise. Advertising, in many ways, is based on a community. Facebook is *guessing* at what community you are in ("your posts look moderate-to-left political"). Google has more data and makes better guesses. Reddit doesn't have to guess. reddit.com/r/skateboarding can pretty safely assume that everyone there is interest in skateboarding goods. reddit.com/r/bodybuilding can sell supplements, reddit.com/r/bifl can sell cast iron cookware, etc.

  35. Re: What's /.'s ad revenue compared to its traffi by nukenerd · · Score: 1

    If lots of your posts keep getting modded down no apparent reason, you just might be the asshole.

    Or there could just be lots of assholes modding.

  36. Going to shit fast by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I dont think they (reddit) how fast it's going to shit. They've abandoned their open source product. They have tracking and advertising already all over the place; it's so bad that sometimes it gets through my adblocker.

    If they think they can add more and make more changes; then they are going to find themselves in the same boat as AOL/Yahoo/dead-co; making the same changes over and over again and then hoping that it gets the user base back; meanwhile, the users are off using something like old and good reddit because they no longer give a shit.

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  38. Progressive profit tax for companies by Baki · · Score: 2

    Income tax is progressive in most civilized states, for good reasons. Maybe applying a similar progression for companies would be beneficial. I see a number of benefits and justifications:

    Larger companies get unfair advantages because of their power and influence. Progressive tax would offset the and create a more level playing field for all companies.

    It would place a cap on companies size in and thus create more and smaller companies, resulting in more competition and this a more dynamic market.

  39. Re: What's /.'s ad revenue compared to its traf by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    /. reserves its groupthink for tech subjects.

  40. Re: What's /.'s ad revenue compared to its traffi by greenwow · · Score: 1

    Or trumpgret. I was banned from both for not being anti-Trump enough. They are true echo chambers.