Reddit is a website that has changed the world. In fact, it’s so ubiquitous that it’s hard to imagine the web without it. Reddit was founded in October 2005 and quickly rose to prominence for its user-generated content. Over the years, Reddit has evolved from a relatively small site with limited functionality to one of the most popular websites on the internet. In honor of Reddit’s 10th anniversary, we decided to take a look back at this groundbreaking website. From funny images to controversial discussions, read on to see how Reddit has shaped the world and what it has in store for the future.
Changes to Reddit After the 2016 Presidential Election
After the 2016 Presidential Election, Reddit underwent some major changes. First and foremost, new moderators were appointed to oversee the site’s content. This move was in response to the community’s overwhelming response to the Trump victory, as many users felt that the site had been overrun by hateful rhetoric.
Another change that occurred was that all links submitted to Reddit were now required to be approved by a moderator before they could be posted. This was done in order to prevent spamming and trolling, two of the main issues that plagued the site following the election.
Finally, Reddit made a significant change to its algorithm in order to promote more high-quality content. This shift is supposed to make it easier for users to find posts that are relevant to them and less likely for them to see posts from pages they don’t subscribe to.
How Reddit Became The Front Page of the Internet
Reddit began as a simple link sharing website in 2005. Originally called “Dragonfly,” the site was created by two MIT students, Steve Huffman and Alexis Ohanian.
In 2006, Reddit user WildWeasel posted an announcement to the community that he had been banned from posting to other forums because he kept making fun of the administrators. In response, Ohanian created a forum called “Ask Me Anything” (AMA) where any user could ask him anything they wanted. This became one of Reddit’s most popular features and eventually led to the creation of AMA subreddit categories such as Politics, Science, Religion, and even Sex.
In 2007, Reddit partnered with Condé Nast Publications to create a section of the Huffington Post website dedicated to Reddit content. The section quickly became known as “The Front Page of the Internet.” That year also saw the launch of Reddit’s first advertising campaign, which featured then-new CEO Yishan Wong describing how Reddit made him laugh during his darkest times.
In 2010, Reddit became available on desktops for the first time and saw its largest growth period yet. That year also saw the debut of Reddiquette, which outlined guidelines for proper Redditing behavior.
In late 2013, Reddit announced that it would be selling advertisements alongside user-generated content in an effort to raise money and become self-sufficient. The move proved controversial with some users but ultimately helped fund new initiatives such as employee growth and expanding international offices.
The Origins of Reddit
Reddit is an online forum and social news aggregation website. It was founded on June 5, 2005, by two Stanford students, Steve Huffman and Alexis Ohanian. The site quickly grew in popularity and had a community of users who helped each other submit content, vote on submissions, and discuss topics. In March 2015, Reddit announced that it would be merging with the website Digg.
On July 15th, 2005, Reddit user shiny_shoe posted the first link to a self-published GIF image titled “Don’t Trust Anyone Over 30.” The post became popular on the site and spawned dozens of similar posts. This was the first viral content submission on Reddit.
In early 2006, Reddit intern Paul Graham submitted a piece titled “How To Start A Startup” to the site’s r/startups subreddit. The post was subsequently voted up to the front page of Reddit where it reached over 1 million readers. This article served as an inspiration for later entrepreneurs such as Jay Z and Mark Zuckerberg.
In December 2006, Reddit user u/kn0thing submitted a link to a story about a man who shot several people in Seattle after breaking into their home without warning. The story quickly went viral on Reddit and became known as the “Seattle shooting”.
In May 2007, Reddit user tiggerthetiger submitted a picture of two men kissing which went viral on the site. The picture received over 2 million views within 48 hours and helped fuel the gay rights
The Evolution of Reddit
Reddit is a website and app that allows users to submit, share, and view content. The site was launched on February 4th, 2006 by then-student Alexis Ohanian and Steve Huffman.
Since its inception, Reddit has undergone many changes. In December 2007, the site introduced a new comment system which allowed users to upvote or downvote comments as well as create their own comments. This system proved to be successful and was later added to the default settings for all new accounts.
In September 2008, Reddit introduced a new feature called “subreddits.” subreddits were collections of content related to a certain topic. For example, there was a subreddit for news articles, another for humor, and yet another for sports. Subreddits were popularized due to the success of the “/r/science” subreddit which was dedicated to discussing science topics.
In July 2009, Reddit introduced its first advertising campaign which allowed brands to sponsor individual posts on the site. Shortly after this announcement, Condé Nast announced that it had acquired Reddit for $50 million USD.
In 2013, Reddit released its first mobile app which allowed users to access the site from their phones. In October of that year, reddit rebranded itself as “Reddit Inc.” in an effort to increase brand recognition and attract more advertisers.
The Evolution of Reddit has been successful in terms of traffic and engagement rates. According to comScore data , Reddit received 21 million unique visitors in March 2017 alone
The Rise of Subreddits
The Old Reddit is a look back at the site that changed the world. Reddit was founded in 2005 by two students, Steve Chen and Alexis Ohanian, who wanted to create a community for sharing links and ideas.
At first, Reddit was just a place for users to post links and discuss them. But early on, Reddit developers realized that users were also interested in voting on content, which led to the creation of the popular front page called “the front page of the internet”.
Today, Reddit is one of the most popular websites in the world with more than 330 million monthly active users. Thanks to its unique user interface and powerful platform tools, Reddit has been able to help shape online culture and influence political debates around the world.
The Battle for Reddit
Reddit was founded on July 10th, 2005 by Alexis Ohanian and Steve Huffman. It quickly became a popular platform for users to share links, discuss topics, and make friendly connections.
In November of 2006, Reddit introduced “subreddits” which were small subsections of the main site devoted to a specific topic. This system allowed users to create communities around interests that they felt weren’t being covered well by the rest of the site.
In January of 2007, Reddit took another big step forward when it launched an API which gave third-party developers access to its data in order to create new applications for the site. This opened up Reddit to a wide range of new possibilities including online voting, live streaming, and even social network integration.
In 2010, Reddit announced that it had reached 1 million active users. That same year, the company raised $10 million in venture capital from investors such as Andreessen Horowitz and Benchmark Capital. In 2012, Reddit merged with Condé Nast’s website Hipmunk which expanded its reach even further.
Despite all these impressive accomplishments, Reddit is no stranger to controversy. In November of 2014, the company came under fire after it was revealed that employees had taken down posts containing links to child pornography without notifying the posters or their communities first. This led to calls for CEO Steve Huffman to resign while also causing some major changes at the company including an overhaul of its policies around content moderation
The Future of Reddit
In 2005, when Reddit was just a tiny site with just 10,000 subscribers, co-founder Alexis Ohanian envisioned it as the future of online communities.
“Reddit was designed to be a platform where anyone could post anything and have its upvote/downvote count impact how popular it became,” he said in an interview with Time. “We wanted it to be this open platform for collaboration.”
That vision has come to fruition. Reddit is now one of the most trafficked websites on the internet, with over 162 million monthly active users and more than 2 billion pageviews in 2017. It’s also responsible for some of the most important developments in online social networking, including formulaic voting on content (a feature that led to the rise of website Reddit Upvoted) and user-generated news (such as the popular Snopes hoax debunking project).
But even as Reddit becomes an increasingly larger part of our lives, its original mission remains at the heart of what makes it special. “The thing that really matters about Reddit is not so much what we do today but what we can build tomorrow,” Ohanian once said. “The possibilities are endless.”
