Reddit prepares to launch new news website 'Upvoted'

http://www.wired.com/2015/10/no-comments-allowed-reddits-new-news-site-upvoted/

by jsnathan • 11 years ago

79 81 11 years ago

wired.com

dang• 11 years ago

Also https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10336961.

jacobheller• 11 years ago

As of Tuesday at midnight, here's what you see at http://upvoted.com: http://i.imgur.com/KsnPvXN.png

r-w2• 11 years ago

Could it end up being built on WordPress?

meritt• 11 years ago

Sure. Something to monitor reddit for highly upvoted and interesting content. Once it hits a certain threshold, add the post to WP. Generate the cache entry and you're pretty well set.

wodenokoto• 11 years ago

I don't know if it still is, but most of Yahoo's magazine content is run on Wordpress.

There is nothing weird about building news sites on Wordpress.

debacle2• 11 years ago

IMHO that looks really awful.

orthoganol2• 11 years ago

Reddit has a reputation as the dark, unruly id of the Internet

Stopped reading there.

Fluid_Mechanics• 11 years ago

Someone needs to introduce the author to /b/.

archagon• 11 years ago

Sorry, but it's true. From what I've observed, Reddit has started to supplant 4chan in that role in the public eye.

orthoganol2• 11 years ago

? From what I've observed, people either don't know much about Reddit (usually over 40 y/o), or they talk about Reddit like an established site. See Bloomberg's interview with Sam Altman posted today. See the consistently incredible turn out of famous figures to Reddit's AMA series.

I mean, how can a website with 200 million users be considered a "dark corner"? Absurd.

Jack000• 11 years ago

The community on reddit has changed a lot from even just a few years ago. I'm seeing a lot more trolling and overt racism in the fringe subreddits (/r/WTF /r/worldnews etc) bleed into /r/all.

mahouse• 11 years ago

Reddit is just the world, unfiltered.

Whoever thinks Reddit is especially racist, sexist or whatever should just go out more often, or get out of their San Francisco political correctness bubble.

TillE• 11 years ago

It's true that Reddit is more or less representative of young, American, mostly white men. But that's not "the world". Not even close.

hoorayimhelping• 11 years ago

Reddit is not the world, and it's not unfiltered. It's the same comments being upvoted and downvoted in similar patterns again and again and again. 4chan is much more unfiltered because it's anonymous and there's no voting mechanism to filter unpopular opinions. 4chan is still not the world though, it's mostly white American men.

forgottenpass2• 11 years ago

I think it's bullshit too, but most people online just want Cable TV With Hyperlinks. Reddit is actually raw and unfiltered to those users.

Everything else on their radar is an editorial outlet, the home shopping network or the classifieds section. The closest they get to interacting with real people is Twitter and Facebook. Which appeal to the user's vanity, and following mechanics keep them in some approximation of the social bubbles they're in offline.

But Reddit has pseudonymous randos, with too many different names for a user to meaningfully fit in their brain, so it becomes a single voice to them. And they have ideas that aren't carefully crafted for palatability before presenting them. So reddit becomes "id."

pjc504• 11 years ago

ideas that aren't carefully crafted for palatability

That's quite an impressive euphemism for some of the stuff that you might see if you were to hit the "random NFSW" link. Not to mention the racial and misogyny hate groups that turn up, or the ubiquity of NSFW usernames.

gopowerranger4• 11 years ago

It's unequivocally true and I've been saying it for years.

tempVariable• 11 years ago

Yup. Every hero( read project ) needs a villain( read risky opposite ) Then inject a bit of marketing and major push via partnered or paid off media campaigns and baby - you have a stew goin'.

I know that first hand and see this as nothing new. Digg, Reddit or whichever are not immune from pressures to perform fiscally. This is probably just a first step, let's see if it works for them.

jorams• 11 years ago

But most importantly, it just isn’t Reddit.

I think the thing that would set Upvoted apart, and that's basically the one reason it could work, is the fact that under the hood it is Reddit. Reddit has an enormous community that practically supplies stories and also validates them as "traffic-worthy".

I've seen several articles on other news sites that were clearly inspired by a popular post on Reddit, though I can't currently find a good example. If other people are doing it, why not Reddit themselves?

jonlucc• 11 years ago

Every terrestrial radio station I've listened to has a story a couple times a month about the "top 10 things people said about something" that is lifted directly from a top post in /r/AskReddit. Some stations mention that it's from Reddit, but some don't.

wingerlang• 11 years ago

Nor, despite its name, will it have any kind of upvoting system

Well the name says the stories have already been upvoted, so no system of the sorts are really implied anyway. I'm sure there are more takes on that though.

nindalf• 11 years ago

Rather it will post sponsored content paid for and approved by advertising partners—and written by the same editorial team that writes editorial posts. “They’re going to be just as interesting as actual content,” Chang says. “It could be a piece on Tesla, a piece on how WiFi works, no matter what it’ll be good content—and it’ll just happened to be sponsored.”

This gives me some disquiet. I realise that this is what advertisers want - high quality ads that can't be blocked, but I think its harmful. In general, I avoid going to sites that have a policy of doing this.

anc84• 11 years ago

Sites like Buzzfeed are cashing in hard with this kind of sham so this fad will ruin a lot more sites in the coming years.

crdb2• 11 years ago

I talked to an Australian magazine that will remain nameless where the executive on the other side of the table told me their business model was 100% sponsored content. I couldn't tell, from their website. Every single article was a sophisticated ad. He said they were doing fantastically and growing fast, users wanted that kind of stuff.

It reminds me of Ogilvy's book on advertising [1]; Ogilvy's experience taught him that informative ads that explained the advantages of the product were most successful with customers. Sponsored content is exactly that, and the opposite might be something like clickbait [2].

Sponsored articles are accessed voluntarily by the customer clicking on them and reading them, and returning to the site; they are unobstrusive being mostly made of text and of (relatively) higher editorial quality, with good photography and so on. I wonder if they are the future of advertising.

On the topic of being unable to filter advertorial content from, well, content, I don't think it's as clear cut as ads vs not-ads, since every writer has their own set of opinions and presents their world view only (with few exceptions). A necessary life skill is critical thinking, learning to dissect an argument, examine its assumptions and data, and come to an independent conclusion as to the point it is making.

[1] core principles are summarized in his "house ad": http://smartonlinesuccess.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/dav...

[2] famously (NSFW): http://www.lazygamer.net/general-news/a-history-of-evony-ads...

vidarh• 11 years ago

In Norway, this would basically require them to disclose the sponsorship on each and every post... I wonder how having to do that would affect such a model... In other words: Do users care?

kawsper3• 11 years ago

In Denmark, you are required by law to state if an article is paid content or not. The law extends to both articles in magazines, but also the web, including blogs.

The ads are not only happening in articles, it is also happening on Vine, where companies sponsor videos of popular users:

http://mashable.com/2014/07/22/sneaky-vine-ads

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2YhqXUekgEc

ableal2• 11 years ago

core principles are summarized in his "house ad": http://smartonlinesuccess.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/dav...

"#32 Yes people read long copy [...] (This page contains 1909 words and you are reading it.)[...]"

Found a text transcript here, mentions late '60s publication: http://www.infomarketingblog.com/ogilvy-mather-direct-ad-4-h...

pjc504• 11 years ago

People have mentioned other countries, but even the US FCC has endorsement rules: https://www.ftc.gov/tips-advice/business-center/guidance/ftc...

6stringmerc• 11 years ago

In talking to a person who at the time worked for a magazine in the music industry, I also learned that a predominant amount of content was sponsored - either submitted and paid for by publicists, record labels, or another entity. I'm not a follower of "music bloggers" but I am aware there have been some sponsored content / pay-to-review type inorganic accusations thrown about as well. Payola never really died, it simply evolved and went digital.

PavlovsCat• 11 years ago

He said they were doing fantastically and growing fast, users wanted that kind of stuff.

So he said, and maybe even believes, yet the magazine will remain nameless, and from looking at the website even a knowledgeable person wasn't able to tell it's all sponsored content.

wldcordeiro• 11 years ago

Sounds like the downfall of Digg all over again.

Angostura2• 11 years ago

Very happy as long as thee is an 'Ad' tag on there somewhere - like Digg does.

gopowerranger4• 11 years ago

TeMPOraL• 11 years ago

Me too. Native advertising is plain evil, in a way even the worst drive-by malware flash popups aren't. They're ads designed with the sole purpose of tricking readers into thinking they're viewing a real article, and they abuse the trust readers have towards the news source. I think John Olliver covered the topic well enough[0], so let me just say that I only hope that Upvoted will label the ads clearly so that it's obvious for everyone they're reading paid content (imagine advertisers letting them do that, though...).

It could be a piece on Tesla

Wait, since when Tesla does native ads? Do they do ads at all?

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_F5GxCwizc

DigitalSea2• 11 years ago

Eh. This feels like what Digg pivoted into, a news website. Except of course, Reddit will be providing the content so it will be more straightforward. Interestingly they mention that it has been in the works for the last year, it seems like this is going to be a basic Wordpress site (unless the hosting page currently is misleading).

almostarockstar• 11 years ago

Using wordpress as a CMS would be quite suitable. I would assume what makes more than 'just another wordpress site' will the back end. Load balancing, caching etc.

I would have expected a custom landing page though.

wiiittttt• 11 years ago

DNS for the domain only has a 300 second TTL. The site can easily be pointed somewhere else before the launch.

  ;; QUESTION SECTION:
  ;upvoted.com.                   IN      A

  ;; ANSWER SECTION:
  upvoted.com.            300     IN      A       192.0.79.33
  upvoted.com.            300     IN      A       192.0.79.32

DigitalSea2• 11 years ago

Seems they are indeed using Wordpress (based on the page source). The real site is here: https://redditupvoted.wordpress.com/ - I think you'll find they're using existing plugins for load-balancing and caching. I don't know specifics though, so a fair bit could be custom but it seems to me 90% of this site was probably design and 10% development.

personjerry• 11 years ago

So tomorrow Reddit launches its own version of 9gag?

romanovcode2• 11 years ago

More like own version of Digg

felixthehat• 11 years ago

Buzzfeed, usvsth3m, The Metro and their ilk just recycle reddit submissions anyway, I think it makes sense for reddit to take a slice of that pie themselves.

rayalez• 11 years ago

I think it's a smart and awesome decision.

Curated reddit. It solves so many problems and can offer a lot of value to everybody.

- People who want "clean" and moderated reddit get what they want,

- advertisers get what they want,

- and, hopefully, reddit users get what they want(because there will be less pressure to moderate reddit.com).

At the very least they will capture all the value that buzzfeed and other bad blogs are currently taking from reddit.

Everybody wins.

adrusi• 11 years ago

Hardly any will be captured by this new venture. This is in competition with clickbait sites and internet culture sites like 9gag. At best it will capture some lurkers.

pjc504• 11 years ago

less pressure to moderate reddit.com

I very much doubt it; the pressure to moderate harder comes from within redditors as well whenever the toxic subreddits leak.

cuchoi• 11 years ago

I feel that this can disincentivize commenting. I am probably going to be a user of Upvoted, taking me out of Reddit where I comment when a story compels me to do it. If there is more people like me, you will reduce your commenting user base.

nahiluhmot• 11 years ago

I've got a feeling that the Reddit community won't be too keen on this, mostly seeing it as another news organization "stealing" their content. IMO a good way to get users behind this would be to compensate the original posters for their content being posted on Upvoted.

austenallred• 11 years ago

Meh. I'm putting it on Reddit, I'd rather they profit from it than Buzzfeed.

flashman• 11 years ago

9.5-year-old Reddit account here, so perhaps my view is atypical, but I see this as Reddit's answer to the new Digg, and to the broader trend of editorial curation as a counterpart (not necessarily a competitor) to aggregation.

Reddit has web aggregation and communities pretty much sewn up as a market. How can they grow? By leveraging their insight into that traffic to create their own publication. I think they see their audience for Upvoted as people who know what Reddit is, and perhaps use it, but aren't power users and just like to have interesting and entertaining stuff presented to them.

Best of luck to them, I certainly don't think Upvoted's success is written in stone (especially given Reddit's history of half-delivering on their initiatives).

Grue3• 11 years ago

I see this as Reddit's answer to the new Digg

Why does the new Digg need answering though? It's now nothing but an obscure website that is only mentioned in connection to how big it once was.

Scarblac• 11 years ago

I wish companies would stop trying to grow, and just continue doing their best at what they do best. Everything that tries to keep growing always goes to shit after a while.

gopowerranger4• 11 years ago

I'm pretty sure the Reddit community is exactly what they want to get away from with this.

romanovcode2• 11 years ago

Seems like Reddit has the same fate as Digg after all.

vnchr• 11 years ago

Almost no mention of it on Reddit prior to this story [0] aside from rumors in a couple small Subreddits. Feels weird as a Reddit user to see something like this out in the news without attempts for creating community buy-in, as if the Reddit team has lost faith in aligning with their user base and instead leans toward working around them.

EDIT: The Wired article is starting to make its way around [1]

[0] https://www.reddit.com/search?q=upvoted.com&sort=new&t=week

[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/3nnw6v/reddit_l...

fluidcruft• 11 years ago

I think it makes sense as a strategy to leverage the existing backend with a new frontend that caters to an entirely different audience. If I were building that to attract a new audience, I wouldn't particularly care what current users think. For example, I think it's pretty well known that reddit is much more successful among men whereas women have preferred other aggregators. If executed well, a new view that sidelines the traditional reddit interface could be a valid alternative for people that are turned off by aspects of reddit's community.

I think it depends on whether reddit is being smart (targeting pinterest) vs retarded (targeting 9gag).

debacle2• 11 years ago

Lets be honest here: Reddit has done a lot of censoring lately. It's not a surprise you're not hearing anything about Upvoted on Reddit, it's just sad.

rspeer• 11 years ago

...what? How does that make sense? You think Reddit is censoring discussion of its own news website?

mason2402• 11 years ago

They have made it pretty clear over the last couple of years that want to jettison their original userbase for a much larger, more mainstream userbase. There is more money in it so I can't say I blame them, but they had better hope they have the critical mass needed to make that happen.

snarfy• 11 years ago

If I wanted editorial content and spin I'd read mainstream news.

Reddit prepares to launch new news website 'Upvoted'

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